{"id":2476,"date":"2012-01-05T22:15:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-05T22:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/01\/the-myth-of-tolerant-paganism.html"},"modified":"2012-01-05T22:15:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-05T22:15:00","slug":"the-myth-of-tolerant-paganism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/01\/the-myth-of-tolerant-paganism.html","title":{"rendered":"The Myth of Tolerant Paganism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
By Michael F. Bird<\/div>\n
Patheos<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
My former post\u00a0December 25th Means the Triumph of Christianity over Paganism<\/a>\u00a0caused a bit of an uproar in pagan circles. Just read the comments. My wife reads my blog so I won\u2019t repeat the content of some of those comments. Across the street at the Patheos Portal, Star Foster responds in a post\u00a0When Interfaith Gets Ugly<\/a>, with me obviously being the \u201cugly\u201d. Now I\u2019m not exactly a chip off a chippendale, my teeth are more crooked than the Governor if Illinois, and women tend to treat me with a mixture of contempt and disdain (and that\u2019s just my mother). \u00a0But I did find Star\u2019s own response to me a bit ugly when she wrote this:<\/div>\n
\n
When I see you attempt to rewrite history, to paint your anarchic, martyr-hungry ancestors as victims, I don\u2019t get angry anymore.<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Let me get this right. Christians were anarchic and were deliberately looking to get themselves martyred? Okay, I\u2019ll admit that there were a few (esp. in North Africa) who set out to become martyrs, but they were a very small number, and their quest for martyrdom was criticized by church leaders. But it was hardly typical of the majority of men, women, and children who were butchered for their Christian faith. Now if that is not bad enough, in the comments she claims that (1) \u00a0the early Christians pretty much got what they deserved for failing to do their \u201ccivic duty,\u201d (2) The early Christians were \u201cdisturbers of the peace\u201d and drew \u201chostility\u201d on themselves; (3) \u201cRome\u2019s thriving Jewish population had no problem with performing their civic duty or living with their non-Jewish neighbors\u201d; and (4) \u201cThe ancient world was a religiously tolerant place\u201d. Now the professional historians and grad students among you know that is just patently false. This young lady does not know what the smurf she\u2019s talking about. Though I am also left wondering if Miss Foster would\u00a0regard Amnesty International\u2019s reports of brutality towards Christian minorities in Africa and Asia as a desperate effort to paint this \u201cmartyr-hungry\u201d group as \u201cvictims\u201d when they clearly not? A contemporary application of her thesis to the present time would be morally disturbing.<\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael F. Bird Patheos My former post\u00a0December 25th Means the Triumph of Christianity over Paganism\u00a0caused a bit of an uproar in pagan circles. Just read the comments. My wife reads my blog so I won\u2019t repeat the content of some of those comments. Across the street at the Patheos Portal, Star Foster responds in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Myth of Tolerant Paganism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"By Michael F. 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