Originally posted by snipo
can anyone imagine how religion was a few centuries ago?.......like how ppl discussed ideas and differences of opinion, like how its done here
This is a major field of study. Most of our historical ideas about religion come from either archeological artifacts, or written sources. Forgive ym narrow scope, I study Classical hisotry, but you need not look farther than Alexander the Great's policy of religious syncretism with the East, Aristotle and Plato's discussions of the natural order, the Roman practice of evocatio, and the structure of the Roman cults/Imperial Cult and their reaction to Christianity.
Under most circumstances in the Greco-Roman Classical world, gods were blended together. Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Assyrian, Roman, Etruscan, even many pagan gods were associated with eachtoher and combined into mega cults. Zeus became Jupiuter-Zeus, which became Jupiter-Zeus-Amun, which became Jupiter-Zeus-Amon-Ra. (you get the point). By the height of the Roman empire, there were hundreds of cults from all over the Empire, my personal favorite being the Sol-Invictus-Mithras cult
, and families would worship what they wanted and as many as they wanted to. (but all were expected to worship the Imperial Cult of the late empire.)
When conquering a new land, the Roman will bring a priest to a new city, and have the priest call out to that city's patron god, telling the god that Roman could worship that particular god better. The priest promised to build the god a grand new temple in Rome, provide many priests and offerings. The enemy was demoralized as no civilization could compete with the Glory of Rome. When they were conquered, the god was added to Roman pantheon and a new temple constructed or he was sycretised with an existing god.
Enough for now.
