I fucking despise religion

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I don't think you can compare the spread of early Christianity to the spead of early Islam. There was some degree of destruction of holy pagan sites and sacred trees and that kind of thing, the occasional full localised scale massacre such as the Isle of Wight.

Charlemange cutting down Thors Oak here.




Pagan Vikings looted and burned down Christian monastries and such so it was all one way.

But conversion tended to be voluntary and gradual in time over a number generations. Pagan and Christians lived peacefully together for a number of years and when they didn't it wasn't anything much to do with their religion. A lot of pagans tended to keep a shrine to the old pagan gods and a shrine to Christ to hedge their bets. Some pagans were buried with Christian grave goods such as the burial at Suton Hoo. Real history isn't as black and white as you would like to think it is. You didn't have nice happy nature loving hippy pagans who then got roughed up by evil power hungry Christians, it was more a progression. Take a look at Viking era Christ in the Jelling Stone. He gets the full pagan treatment with the interlacings here, the face of a Viking warrior god.