Religiously motivated oppression

A brief

overview

of religious

oppression

in biblical times

and in

Western

countries

In ancient times, a person's religion was generally determined by the beliefs of their local dictator/king. Individual religious freedom was rare. Gods and Goddesses were perceived as local deities with a defined geographical range.

When a person moved into another country, they would typically adopt the Gods and Goddesses of their new region. One example of this is seen in a famous passage from Ruth 1:17-18 when Ruth said to Naomi:

"...Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

When another country declared war and successfully overthrew the local dictator/king, the losers interpreted this as proof that the foreign God was greater than the local deity. The public in the losing country often converted to the religion of the invaders. One example of this was the attack by the Assyrians during 722 & 721 BCE on the Northern Hebrew kingdom of Israel. Ten of the Hebrew tribes plus the Levites were scattered and lost their Jewish identity.

Intolerance of other religions was the rule rather than the exceptions. A few of the many examples in the Hebrew Scriptures (a.k.a. Old Testament) are listed below:

Exodus 32 discusses the mass murder of Hebrews because they worshiped another deity.
	Numbers 25 describes the mass murder of Hebrew men who married women from another tribe -- presumably because the women worshiped another deity.
	1 Kings 18:17-40 describes the mass execution of 450 priests of Baal, and 400 priests of Asherah because of their faith.
	Exodus 20:4-6 contains the third of the Ten Commandments, according to the Protestant/Eastern Orthodox sequence. It explains that if a person bows down to a "graven image," like a statue, they and their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will be punished.
	The books of Joshua, Judges, 2 Samuel and 2 Chronicles records the killing of hundreds of thousands of people of other religions. Often entire populations were wiped out: women, men, children, infants and newborns.
	More information.

A period of relative religious freedom in the Roman Empire prior to the 4th century CE:

As the Roman Empire expanded throughout the Mediterranean, it allowed the conquered peoples to retain their own religions. It was a time of general religious freedom. However, the state expected everyone to perform certain civic duties. One of them was to make a sacrifice to the Roman Gods in the temple. To most of the population, this did not represent a problem:

	Followers of polytheistic religions within the Empire were generally able to draw correspondences between their Gods and Goddesses and the corresponding deities from the Roman pantheon.
	Followers of various Mystery Religions often held at least a nominal allegiance to the official Pagan religion of Rome along with their beliefs in their own religion.
	Jews were respected by the Romans because of both their high ethical behavior and the ancient roots of their religion. They were exempt from the requirements to sacrifice in the Pagan temple.