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Goodbye Jesus

When Christians Were Persecuted


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Has anyone noticed that christians love to go on about how they were supposedly persecuted during Roman times?

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TBH there's not much evidence that it happened the way they claimed.

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Has anyone noticed that christians love to go on about how they were supposedly persecuted during Roman times?

Yeah, well, those Romans will get theirs someday and then the xians can finally just put it all behind them. Maybe some reparations would also be in order?

 

mwc

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Has anyone noticed that christians love to go on about how they were supposedly persecuted during Roman times?

 

 

TBH there's not much evidence that it happened the way they claimed.

 

 

Interestingly enough, there's not much evidence that xians are being persecuted today the way they claim.

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:rolleyes: It's like when you're watching kids and they get into a fight and when explaining why, they bring up that time a month ago when the other one pushed them for no reason, and they tell you how much it hurt.

 

People and their persecution complex...

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I think the historical records bears witness that some Christians were killed. From the Roman perspective, they were prosecuted for disturbing the peace. Perhaps they did not openly disturb the peace, but they refused to submit to certain laws, such as pouring oblation to the emperor or giving a pinch of incence for the emperor. Read Pliny the Younger in his enquiry of the emperor Trajan about managing Christians, and others.

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Has anyone noticed that christians love to go on about how they were supposedly persecuted during Roman times?

 

 

TBH there's not much evidence that it happened the way they claimed.

 

 

Interestingly enough, there's not much evidence that xians are being persecuted today the way they claim.

 

Can one persecute a majority... if so they were persectuing the Roman with their 'don't pay the Emperor' schtick... as has been said before, you don't pay your taxes, you get your ass handed to you with parsley garnish...

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I think the historical records bears witness that some Christians were killed. From the Roman perspective, they were prosecuted for disturbing the peace. Perhaps they did not openly disturb the peace, but they refused to submit to certain laws, such as pouring oblation to the emperor or giving a pinch of incence for the emperor. Read Pliny the Younger in his enquiry of the emperor Trajan about managing Christians, and others.

 

 

From Roman record, it seems to be one sect denouncing another, and them fighting each other...

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Yes - where would they be without persecution complexes?

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Has anyone noticed that christians love to go on about how they were supposedly persecuted during Roman times?

That was what? 1500 years ago or more?

 

Who is persecuting them now? Islam?

 

Or maybe people who ask questions and want reasonable answers?

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Within the various christianitys, (each having its own christ) there were a number of incindiary cults that believed that their christ wanted them to set the world on fire.

Arson being a serious crime, the authoritys tended to react rather poorly to these holy arsonists and their sacred mission of flame.

Roman law was very specific about the fate of arsonists, REGARDLESS of their religion... Arson is punished by being fed to the lions at the arena.

The fact that early christians were setting themselves, eachother, passing strangers, and whole citys on fire, meant that they were in violation of the anti arson laws of the roman state.

This little problem came to a head with the decission of several christian groups to jointly torch the city of Rome.

Once the flames were doused, an angry mob of singed plebs demanded justice. The christians were gleefully crowing about their achievment. And Nero was able to pull his head out of his own ass long enough to issue a proclamation to the effect that since christians were so proud of their crime, they should be proud to become lion chow for it.

 

The rest is history

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D. Laurier, where do you get this version of the story? I thought you had a link there. But when I rolled my mouse over it, it did not show as a link.

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The rest is history

The rest perhaps, but nothing of what you've said prior to this statement. Wow. I mean. Really. Wow. It was very imaginative to say the least but other than the fact that there was (and were) fires in Rome and even during the time of Nero, did any of this other information come from?

 

mwc

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It sure sounds like Nero...

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TBH there's not much evidence that it happened the way they claimed.

True. From what I remember the only "persecution" they got was when they started uprisings against the authorities and caused general havoc. Pretty much the same way as the terrorists or serial killers are "persecuted.

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TBH there's not much evidence that it happened the way they claimed.

 

Well other than that pesky historical record in pre-Christian Roman documents...

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Well other than that pesky historical record in pre-Christian Roman documents...

Like what? And can you explain exactly what you mean with pre-Christian, since the topic was "persecution of Christians". How can there be persecution of a group of people, and even documents, before they even existed as a group? To me that would raise a red flag.

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I'm not sure where you got this information,

 

There are a lot of theories about what caused the fires in Rome. One of them is that Nero had them set himself. He had a large building project he wanted to start and there wasn't really anywhere to build it, it is thought that he may have tried to set a controlled fire in a district of Rome that was largely unpopulated and then it got out of control.

 

It is possible that he blamed the Christians as a scape goat to avoid having any one figure out, there were already a quite a few people who didn't trust the Christians because people felt they had strange rituals and were unpatriotic.

 

Of course we will likely never know for sure what caused the fires in Rome. I would say it is true that Christians blow the persecution in first and 2nd century way out of proportion...and usually misunderstand the reasons for it as well.

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Well other than that pesky historical record in pre-Christian Roman documents...

Like what? And can you explain exactly what you mean with pre-Christian, since the topic was "persecution of Christians". How can there be persecution of a group of people, and even documents, before they even existed as a group? To me that would raise a red flag.

 

I'm guessing he means before they became the dominant religion in the 4th century.

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Like what? And can you explain exactly what you mean with pre-Christian, since the topic was "persecution of Christians". How can there be persecution of a group of people, and even documents, before they even existed as a group? To me that would raise a red flag.

 

I'm guessing he means before they became the dominant religion in the 4th century.

Maybe so, it just sound very strange to claim to know of pre-Christian documents of persecution of Christians. I guess I have to wait and see what documents he brings up, and what he really means with pre-Christian. If it's your definition, or pre-Catholic, or maybe pre-Nicene, or pre-Paul, or ...

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Well other than that pesky historical record in pre-Christian Roman documents...

Like what? And can you explain exactly what you mean with pre-Christian, since the topic was "persecution of Christians". How can there be persecution of a group of people, and even documents, before they even existed as a group? To me that would raise a red flag.

 

Like what? Edicts and laws for one. As for what I mean't by pre-Christian Roman documenats, I meant documentary evidence that pre-dates Rome's adoption and recognition of Christianity under Constantine (and even then some later Emperors did launch some progroms)... so basically the 300 year period from around 33ADish to 330ADish.

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Well other than that pesky historical record in pre-Christian Roman documents...

Like what? And can you explain exactly what you mean with pre-Christian, since the topic was "persecution of Christians". How can there be persecution of a group of people, and even documents, before they even existed as a group? To me that would raise a red flag.

 

Like what? Edicts and laws for one. As for what I mean't by pre-Christian Roman documenats, I meant documentary evidence that pre-dates Rome's adoption and recognition of Christianity under Constantine (and even then some later Emperors did launch some progroms)... so basically the 300 year period from around 33ADish to 330ADish.

Okay. Basically your opinion is that outlawing certain behavior is the same as persecution of the perpetrator. It's like I said earlier, persecution to Chrisitans was the same as how we "persecute" terrorists and serial killers.

 

What are the evidence that these Christians that were outlawed were unjustly and unfairly persecuted? Did the Romans just invent laws against Christians out of the blue, or did they have a reason? The Roman empire was very open and secular to alternative religions until the Christians came around, I wonder what happened.

 

And have anyone studied the "persecution" of any other religions or criminals of that time?

 

By the way, the "pre-Christian Roman" still is a bit confusing, but I understand what you mean now, you're referring to the "pre-orthodox" or "pre-nicene" time. After all you have to admit that there wouldn't be any Christians to persecute in the pre-Christian time.

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Well other than that pesky historical record in pre-Christian Roman documents...

Like what? And can you explain exactly what you mean with pre-Christian, since the topic was "persecution of Christians". How can there be persecution of a group of people, and even documents, before they even existed as a group? To me that would raise a red flag.

 

I'm guessing he means before they became the dominant religion in the 4th century.

 

 

It can be read as "The documents of pre-christian Rome", rather than "The pre-christian documents of Rome."

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Well other than that pesky historical record in pre-Christian Roman documents...

Like what? And can you explain exactly what you mean with pre-Christian, since the topic was "persecution of Christians". How can there be persecution of a group of people, and even documents, before they even existed as a group? To me that would raise a red flag.

 

Like what? Edicts and laws for one. As for what I mean't by pre-Christian Roman documenats, I meant documentary evidence that pre-dates Rome's adoption and recognition of Christianity under Constantine (and even then some later Emperors did launch some progroms)... so basically the 300 year period from around 33ADish to 330ADish.

Okay. Basically your opinion is that outlawing certain behavior is the same as persecution of the perpetrator. It's like I said earlier, persecution to Chrisitans was the same as how we "persecute" terrorists and serial killers.

 

On some level - but the topic focused on the more "active" persecution did it not? and that precisely was what I was refering to. So aside from Nero's scapegoating in 64 at the attendant public executions, torture, confiscation of land and wealth, condemnation for "un-Roman" behavior and beliefs (wonder if Bush Co. got the idea from here) and destruction of places of worship there are a number of other examples such as:

Public outbreaks of violence against Christians - 112 in Bithynia-Pontus (see Pliny's Letters 10.96-97), the 150s in Smyrna, 177 in Lugdunum (modern Lyon).

On the State Level in 249-251 the empire-wide requirement of sacrifice to the Roman gods resulted in the public 'outing' and violence against Christians (some call it the 1st 'Great' Persecution) with the backing of the state for the violation of Roman law and civic duty.

Next in 253-260 (the 2nd 'Great' Persecution) was intially a targeted progrom against the clergy but later widened to eliminate upper-class men and women who refused to renounce their faith or who sheltered clergy (and I'm sure the confiscation of the land and wealth was just a happy benifit ;)) - the penatlies proscribed for these citizens and/or clergy was seizure of property, and execution or exile.

Next in starting 303 Dioclietian and Galerius (joint Princeps) launched a campaign specifically targeting Christian places of worship for destruction in addition to the revoking of all legal rights for any 'Christian' organization, and again the public sacrifice to Roman gods as a 'loyalty' test (sometimes called the 3rd 'Great' Persecution) - this persecution played a large part in the friction and finally open conflict between Constantine and Galerius.

 

 

What are the evidence that these Christians that were outlawed were unjustly and unfairly persecuted? Did the Romans just invent laws against Christians out of the blue, or did they have a reason? The Roman empire was very open and secular to alternative religions until the Christians came around, I wonder what happened.

 

See above.

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Thanks. Much better when you give a little backing to your post. :)

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