What will win the god wars? Faith, Fantasy, Facts, or God?

[Greatest I am]

Indeed.

The mindset of the inquisitors was such that atheists were just another bunch that had to die if they did not kowtow to the desired Christianity.

My way or die would have been their battle cry.

Regards
DL

That’s absolutely untrue. Atheists were far more likely to be killed by secular authorities than by any ecclesiastical institution. The inquisitions went after heretics, not apostates.

Boru

They went after whoever was not accepting Christianity as their religion.

Gnostic Christians were targeted, and they, Christians, were not apostates or heretics.

They just did not want to pay some regime or religion that ran a corrupt church of murderers.

 When religion and the state are as close as Christianity was back when to the government, I can agree that atheists were more likely to be killed by secular authorities. Those were controlled by or in cooperation with the states religion.

Did Christian kill for Constantine of god. IDK, as they were connected at the hip.

Regards
DL

[The Grand Nudger]

The inquisitors themselves went after money. Whatever it was intended to be, it turned into an asset seizure racket pretty quick.

[Greatest I am]

The inquisitors themselves went after money.  Whatever it was intended to be, it turned into an asset seizure racket pretty quick.

For sure.

Have you seen the long list of laws Constantine and the next Emperor put in to move wealth from non-Christians to Christians?

I have it somewhere if required. 

I see it as legislated institutionalized theft.

Good old Christianity. A cult of thieves and murderers.

Regards
DL

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The inquisitors themselves went after money.  Whatever it was intended to be, it turned into an asset seizure racket pretty quick.

For sure.

Have you seen the long list of laws Constantine and the next Emperor put in to move wealth from non-Christians to Christians?

I have it somewhere if required. 

I see it as legislated institutionalized theft.

Good old Christianity. A cult of thieves and murderers.

Regards
DL

What’s that got to do with the inquisitions?

I’m unfamiliar with the laws you mention. Do you have a link?

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

Tax exemptions. Nothing to do with the inquisitions and nothing to do with the religion of christianity, either. It was payback to targeted individuals for their political support. Christian demagogery provided a useful alternative to the imperial cult and pagan state, particularly in that the imperial cult and pagan state had been grinding through emperors for some time.

Thirty years after that wave of christianization had peaked and then sputtered, their children would be the thorn in julian apostate's side, he being the last pagan emperor who had very much nailed christianity to it's own cross. Had he not been killed in battle, there would likely be no christianity as we know it today.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Tax exemptions.  Nothing to do with the inquisitions and nothing to do with the religion of christianity, either.  It was payback to targeted individuals for their political support.

Oh, those. Yeah, I’m aware.

Boru

[Greatest I am]

[The Grand Nudger]

There would be about ten more emperors between Constantine and the last pagan emperor of the world, Julian. It was a rough period of time. So, some context and an important correction. First, the correction. Gnostics did not invent christianity, they themselves were a split off group of proto-christians.

Now, context. It was often the case during the three to four hundred years it took for something resembling modern chrstianity to shape for one wave of christianization to have little in common with the next (or the one which had preceded it). The gnostic sect was part of the romanizing wave (which was the third, at least), and had very clearly been responsible for turning what would have otherwise been one set of heathen superstitions among thousands under the roman umbrella into a franchised ideology of state. The trouble was that the people who benefitted most from this, who would become instrumental in the next wave, had no further use for them or their specific ideology, though they quite liked the literary tradition that they'd constructed and the recruitment strategy that had coalesced under their apogee.

-and so it was as it has ever been. One group of christians consuming another. It's a predatory belief system, as julian noted on paganisms way out the door. That's always been it's greatest strength, even if it generates a bunch of heat and criticism.

[Greatest I am]

There would be about ten more emperors between Constantine and the last pagan emperor of the world, Julian.  It was a rough period of time.  So, some context and an important correction.  First, the correction.  Gnostics did not invent christianity, they themselves were a split off group of proto-christians.  

Now, context.  It was often the case during the three to four hundred years it took for something resembling modern chrstianity to shape for one wave of christianization to have little in common with the next (or the one which had preceded it).  The gnostic sect was part of the romanizing wave (which was the third, at least), and had very clearly been responsible for turning what would have otherwise been one set of heathen superstitions among thousands under the roman umbrella into a franchised ideology of state.  The trouble was that the people who benefitted most from this, who would become instrumental in the next wave, had no further use for them or their specific ideology, though they quite liked the literary tradition that they'd constructed and the recruitment strategy that had coalesced under their apogee.

-and so it was as it has ever been.  One group of christians consuming another.  It's a predatory belief system, as julian noted on paganisms way out the door.  That's always been it's greatest strength, even if it generates a bunch of heat and criticism.

Consuming each other. No. 

More like trying to murder each other.

If they had not stopped that infighting to fight the Muslims, the West would have lost all of Europe.

As to ancient history, I think we owe Christianity to the Greeks and Chrestianity.

I have yet to prove this, but little of ancient history is provable. Especially when the inquisitors wrote the history.

Regards
DL