Quote:You can find religious brutality in our entire history as a species globally aimed in all directions.
Actually, it is a monotheistic perversion. Generally speaking the ancients did not do it. The Romans were famous for incorporating the gods of a conquered area into their own pantheon. When the Greeks moved East they ran into the Zoroastrians in Persia and seem to have spread their ideas via Hellenism in a number of cases. They might conquer territory and kill people but it was usually simple greed or expansionist tendencies. Its roughly akin to when the religitards say "Stalin killed millions to advance atheism." No, he didn't. He killed millions who resisted communism/collectivization. That is somewhat different than Charlesmagne who executed 4,500 pagans because they refused to become xtians.
When the Egyptians overran Canaan they did not obliterate the Canaanite pantheon. They built temples to their own gods in their primary garrison town of Bet Shean but they didn't give a rat's ass what the Canaanites worshiped. Egyptian religion was for Egyptians. It wasn't for export. In the Amarna library of the 14th century BC the ruler of "Jerusalem" was called Abdi-Heba which means "Servant of Heba." Heba was a Hurrian (Syrian) goddess but the Egyptians didn't care. They put him in charge.
