Religion in the Middle Ages

[Anomalocaris]

I guess it's irony that we can look back now in hindsight, and see that people were probably happier and (relatively) more peaceful in the Pagan societies the Christians branded as "savage".

I know which kind of society I'd rather have lived in.

Only if that pagan society had the benefit of free trade and education. The backwater ones weren't any more or less civilized.

Or if the pagan society enjoyed greater sexual equality, sexual freedom, intellectual tolerance, and greater freedom from morbid fear of sin as distinct from enlighten concern for the collective good.        While backwaters are by definition not over-civilized, people of different backwaters are not all equally unhappy.     In fact one hallmark of backwater Christianity is a morbid fear that some people somewhere maybe less repressed, and therefore happier, than Christians, so the Christians must invent hell to douse any hint of happiness.