Were other European religions better than Christianity?

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Duels to the death persisted for a very long time after the spread of christianity. Gladiatorial fights were entertainment first, whatever else a distant second. Christianity burned people at the stake, or dumped them in rivers, or put them on the needle. Suicide was most definitely not seen as a "shortcut to valhalla", it was seen as a last ditch effort if one failed to die in battle. Specifically, they would jump off of a cliff, or fall on their own sword. No poisoning, no slitting of the wrists....only those who die violent deaths need apply. Christianity has similar provisions (though christians probably don't like the comparison) in martyrdom.

Which also disproves the main point of this thread.
But I'm fairly certain that I've read the hanging thing somewhere. I'll check it up for you.

Many of the worlds current religions are pagan religions. It's only a blanket term for non-abrahamic religions.

Well, I'm not really sure. I think today it's generally used for non-world religions.
For example, hinduism and buddhism are not pagan, due to their "world religion" status.

Essentially it's a derogatory "redneck" jab (pagan meaning: country dweller), which is ironic, given the backwater origins of abrahamic religions. As soon as abrahamic religions made it out of the woods, they looked down upon those in the woods with disdain...so apparently they've always been a bunch of hypocritical, sanctimonious assholes.

Abrahamic religions came from the orient, yes, however "Pagan" was essentially a term used by the Romans, not by the early christians, nor by any of the christianity types that flourished in the east.

I can't say that I respect ancient faiths any more than current ones. It's all the same to me. Whether positive or negative benefits of any faith accrued has little do to with a faith, and everything to do with the people of that faith.

Not always. People do change their entire lifestyles around their faith sometimes, although not always without changing the faith according to themselves either.

I'd like to see you make the case that vicarious redemption is anything more than juvenile wishful thinking. There are angsty christian teens (and many many more of them). Wicca is just a modern alternative to abrahamic religions that found a convenient backdrop in paganism. An attempt was made to draw authority from age, and this same attempt is made in service of christianity. The urges, motivations, and claims are identical (gods, magic, morality, reward) the descriptions are different.

Well, they do not draw inspiration on any known books of ancient origin by default. They add them as they see fit.

I think you're trying to manufacture a point of contention where none exists. So? Religions do move into areas peacefully, but it is a rare thing for them to do so unless the area they move into is uninhabited, or very sparsely inhabited. Your mention of Ireland as an area of peaceful conversion is garbage. That's a story peddled by christian monks about their mythical demigod "Patrick". In any case, "peaceful christian conversion" and "ireland" do not belong together at all. Al Qaeda are amateur bomb-makers compared to the IRA. While the case could be made that these conflicts are political (or secular) in nature, one cannot ignore the element of religion...which is often found in service of these sorts of conflicts. That doesn't detract from the notion that religion is not a force for good, it re-enforces it.

And why do you mention the IRA in this case?
How are they supposedly involved in this? And yes, one cannot ignore the element of religion in that it is generally tied to political conflicts. With the protestants choosing to stay with England, as they did througout the English rule of Ireland, and the catholics with Ireland, as they did so during the English rule of Ireland.
In short, it's all politics...That too, was the case for most of the wars of religion that occured in Europe...

Boy you sure do know a lot about Aztec civilization.........

I can't say I'm an expert on it. But I've read that they were a morally strong and strict society.

I don't see any increase in peace in Central and South America as a result of colonization.

Well, that is of course, another topic, but I'd rather attribute this to a new type of colonisation from the North of the American continent.
Not to the previous colonisations.

I don't know why you seem to think there has been.

Well, they certainly had some benefits, and of course, losses.
Losses were in terms of losing their identities, cultures, languages, and etc.
Gains were mostly in terms of how well they incorporated themselves into the foreign culture.

Didn't you just make a remark about conflicts being secular in nature? So quick to defend religion against secularism, and then so quick to blame religion for something the aztecs did as being caused by religion.

I do not defend religion against secularism.
I'm merely stating the facts. This not to say anything against secularism.
But in fact, it is actually you, who is trying to blame everything on religion.
There were things that were caused by religious motives, and there were things caused by secular motives.
But in all, secular motives like monetary gain, colonisation, and gold are of first and foremost priorities.

A near perfect moral society? Except all of those ritual sacrifices right...lol? Did you just make the claim that there were no Aztec criminals?

That's what I read.

What about that seems to be a rejection of "materialistic lifestyles"? Perhaps you should stick to something you have actual knowledge of, like ethnocentrism and bigotry, and leave anthropology to those of us who are capable of discerning reality from fiction?

If you know better than I do, you're certainly free to provide any kinds of reading materials.
And besides, I tell of no fiction. The spaniards themselves noted these when they walked the streets of the aztec capital.
You certainly know better than they do?
Yeah, I'll leave anthropology to some farmer alright.

To recap, you've manufactured a litany of fantasies here so that you could take some jab at materialism. You could have saved yourself embarrassment and simply posted a one-liner against materialism and secular societies. How hard would that have been?

You think I'm attacking secularism? There is a thread for that already, I could have gone there if I wanted to do that.
But it's certainly you who thinks that he can tie humanity's failings to religion, and disregard the things that had a much more major contribution to it, like for example, materialism.

How is it misinformation?
The crusades, the ethnic cleansing of the Indians and the Inquisition were a direct extension of Christian theology, and in no way a perversion of it as modern Christians would like to believe.

We could discuss these in a different thread if you want to.

The Bible says that people who don't worship the Judeo Christian should be put to death. Theres nothing in the theology of Norse Paganism or Hellenism which encourages religious wars. The idea that everyone else should follow your religion and you need to convert everyone else to it came from Judaism and Christianity.

Where?

Classical Rome and Greece had a relatively high level of religious freedom and were not opposed to learning and science like Christianity was.

And you think that Christianity certainly is?
Byzantium was still a place of learning even after it's conversion to Christianity.
The only reason why whatever else ceased to be in "Classical Rome" as in Western Rome, was because it was overrun and overtaken by barbarians.

Christianity put Europe into the Dark Ages and fought to keep us there as long as possible.

And how? Explain.