(September 19, 2022 at 12:47 pm)Jehanne Wrote:(September 19, 2022 at 10:54 am)Mister Agenda Wrote: Welcome, JML. Not sure of the scholarship on this. Has any empire created a new religion out of nearly whole cloth to insert into a population they want to pacify? The Romans were pretty advanced, but this seems unlikely on the face of it, and unlikely that there would be no record of it.
The Romans were pagans, and they had no qualms about adding the Christian god(s) to their existing Pantheon of gods. It was the claim by some Christians that their religion was the "One True Faith" that started to rub the Romans in the wrong way.
Yup, as ancient empires went, the Romans were reasonably tolerant of the faiths of their client states. As long as you paid your tributes and accepted the current Emperor as overlord, the Romans weren't terribly concerned with what rituals you got up to.
In fact, if the Jews hadn't been so stiff-necked about all of the above, Christianity might never have arisen at all.
Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
