BASIC INFORMATION ON RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE & CONFLICT

PAST EVENTS

Sponsored link.

Someday, we plan to expand the following essay into a whole series of essays, each covering a specific time interval or culture. But a brief overview of the topic is all we can present at this time. 

Prior to the establishment of the Roman Empire, religious intolerance was the norm. Individual tribes had their own Gods and/or Goddesses who belonged to them and ruled over their area. A person joining the tribe would be expected to abandon their old beliefs and accept the tribe's deities. There are many accounts of vicious genocide by the ancient Israelites against neighboring tribes that were at least partly based on religion.

During much of the Roman Empire, the civil government enforced religious tolerance. Within the empire, many religions flourished: the Greek and Roman Pagan religions, mystery religions, Christianity, Judaism, Mithraism, etc. It required only that its citizens perform certain routine civic duties. Unfortunately for the Christians, everyone was required to make nominal sacrifices to the Roman Gods, and sometimes to recognize the Emperor as divine. Many of the early Christians refused to meet these requirements, and so were seriously oppressed under some emperors.

After Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the late 4^th century, religious toleration ended:

The framers of the U.S. Constitution feared of the power of religious hatred and created a wall of separation between church and state. The state would be secular; the public would be free to choose any religious faith, or none. The system has worked reasonably well in the U.S. ever since. Except for oppression (and occasional killing or attempted murder) of Jews, Mormons and Roman Catholics in the 19^th century, and of Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, and Neopagans in the 20^th century, North America has enjoyed relative religious peace. Other parts of the world, from Northern Ireland to the Philippines, from Kosovo to the Sudan continue to experience religiously-based civil strife and warfare.

Religious tolerance has only been rarely present in the west. The few past examples of tolerance (e.g. the Roman Empire and the United States) have been seriously flawed.

Related essay:

Site navigation

Copyright © 1999 to 2006 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Originally published: 1999-SEP-9
Latest update: 2006-SEP-13
Author: B.A. Robinson