Is Islam A Death Cult?

[Anomalocaris]

what did in the imperial roman army in wasn’t mercenaries,  but a system of imperial succession that always overtly or tacitly required backing by military force.    consequently the soldiers found the upside in being instrumental in enthroning the winning contestant for the crown far outweigh the down side in losing the bid to enthrone their rival emperor.    So the army gradually degenerated into a cadre force for forming conscript mob forces to fight civil wars.

…and the cause of this was the very brutal nature of the empire since its beginning. A legionary would enlist in the Roman army for a period of 25 years. In modern language that’s a death sentence. The term “decimation” is a practice that existed in that Era. If a military unit lacked discipline, they would kill every 10th man in that unit. Crucifixion was a real practice. Those who dares to follow the rebel slave Spartacus (6000 of them) were crucified along the road from Rome to south Italy. So yes, they were the major civilizing force of the world at the time. But no they were as brutal (perhaps more brutal) than any other power-based empire that followed them in the middle ages. Their economy was 100% based on slave labor and their power was based on a military machine that was designed to conquer and conquer and conquer. Just think of the size of their dominion. Why would anyone want to have such a huge amount of territory without having sailing methods or motorized vehicles? (We’re talking of an era in which it took perhaps a week or two to move from one city to the other.
 
So whatever. Maybe they were doomed to crumble at some point anyway

almost nothing in that is really true.    During the period when Rome made her most critical conquests during the republic, the legions consisted of land owning farmers who were levied to served terms ranging from one year to several years depending on military need, and discharged when the military need passed.     Only after Marian reforms did the legions began to be manned by landless poor, even then they still served only for the duration.  Only during the empire did legions consisted largely of urban and landless poor who signed up to serve a contract period of 20 years.     
20 years was not a death sentence, because legionaries enlist at 18 and is discharged before they are 40.   Even in the age when overall life expectancy is around 35 years thanks to high infant mortality, those who live past infancy and childhood can still look forward to living into their 60s.   so a man who lived to 18 to enlist in the legions can expect to live 20-30 more years after he completed his 20 year term.  we have evidence that vast majority of legionaries lived to retirement during early to middle empire.    indeed service in the legions was considered a sure way for the young indigent poor in the roman world to achieve upward economic and social mobility because savings from their service pay, plus their discharge bonuses is enough to enable the discharged legionary to start a family on a plot of land that is usually part of their discharge bonus and maintain at least a lower middle class living from its fruits.   
decimation is a real punishment for units which had shown collective cowardess before the enemy.    but this punishment is recorded to have been carried out only a handful of times during the entire roman history.   each instance was considered an exception event worthy of note across the roman world.  In many of these instances when the punishment was  carried out, it was mitigated by selecting a total of 10 men from the offending unit to be executed instead of executing every tenth man from the unit.
Roman empire depended heavily on slave labor, but was never close to being “100%” dependent on slave labor.  in fact slaves made up only 10-20% of the total population of the roman empire.   In the pre-industrial age a rule of thumb is it takes at least 2 people’s labor to feed 3 people, including themselves.   so even if all slaves worked in agriculture they could still only have kept at most 1/3 of the roman empire fed.   The rest of the empire depended on freeman labor.