Religious Oppression And Religious Persecution

In Roman religion, it was crucial “to serve the gods and ensure goodwill” (The Roman Republic). The English word “Religion” comes from the Latin word “Religio” (Overview of Religion). Latin was the ancient language of Rome, but for the Roman’s the translation meant something very different from what we understand it as today. To the Romans, “Religio” translated to “ the fear of gods” (Overview of Religion). Romans invested much of their time serving the gods, performing rituals and sacrifices in honor of them. On the contrary, Greek religion did not prefer to execute rituals as much as the Romans. Greeks were more lenient when honoring the gods. They did not have a theological dogma: belief or principle. There was no specific way in which the religion was executed. The Greeks many gods had different purposes and works they performed. They relied more on the verbal spread of the religion rather than having a written form. Although different, both religions had forms of praising and honoring their gods. Greek and Roman religion have many differences and similarities that impacted each group of people.

At one time, all of Rome was united by a common religion. This religion, commonly referred to as the Roman religion, was derived from the religion in Greece. Members of this religion, which included the majority, if not all, of the Roman citizens, worshiped many different gods, including the creator or father god, Jupiter, the sun god, Apollo, the god of inspiring wars, Mars, and many others as well. The popularity of this religion began to decline when Christianity arose. It appealed to the majority of the people, particularly the lower class and slaves, who now had something to put their hope and faith in. This religion spread rapidly, and Roman emperors felt that because it was so influential it would become a possible threat. These leaders began persecuting Christians, but many Romans had already committed to this religion and refused to abandon it because they viewed it as the most important part of their life. This led to a lack of patriotism in Roman citizens who then rejected politics and became independent of the government.

From the third to the fourth century, the Roman Empire witnessed a widespread attempt to stop the spread of Christianity. Initially, leaders of the church were predominately targeted, but later anyone admitting to Christianity became a target. The persecutions hit a climax during Diocletian’s reign. These persecutions actually helped the spread of Christianity by glorifying Christians and beginning a tradition of martyrdom that shaped the Church, and the strength that Christians displayed shows that the persecutions could not have possible stopped the spread of Christianity.

Both the Greeks and Romans were accepting of other gods from different cultures. Romans adopted different gods and made them a part of the Roman religion. This would soon change as the Christian religion began to rise in popularity. In Roman society Christianity was not accepted they “believed it was anti-Roman and considered it atheist, it was outlawed, and people were executed”

Religion played a key role in the daily life and social system of Ancient Rome. Religion included the worship of many gods and more gods were often adopted from conquered areas. Because most religions were polytheist at the time, the Romans rarely disallowed a cult from a conquered region to continue. A few cults ran into controversy and opposition from citizens or government, such as the cult of Deus Sol Invictus, and that of Isis. Romans were also not keen on monotheistic religion which explains their separation from the Jews. But above all other religions, the Romans disagreed with, persecuted and were threatened most by Christianity.  The introduction of Christianity to the Roman Empire

Discrimination. It’s all over the world in the modern era we live in. I’m going to use the Christian belief system as a comparison to the Jews during the Holocaust. In today’s time, persecution of the Christians is a large number. If you scroll back in history to the 1940’s, the Jewish persecution was even worse…..

Christianity experienced many pitfalls along the path to fulfillment. As in history, today we find ourselves learning Christ’s lessons

During both the Armenian genocide and the Holocaust, harsh persecutors punished others for their religious beliefs.

On the other more extreme side of things, religious persecution can be extremely fatal, leading to loss of life over differing beliefs and attitudes. Just look at today’s political climate. ISIS, an extremist radical group known for being religiously charged, takes credit for virtually every act of mass violence across the world. This has caused people all over the world to be afraid of Muslims even though their religion really has nothing to do with these acts of violence. People have made the religion out to be the problem when that isn’t the issue.

Religions and its followers have been persecuted, both legally and hypothetically, for its beliefs and practices throughout history. While there are numerous examples of religious persecution around the world, here, in the United States the legal persecution of Native Americans for their use of peyote has been one of the most distinct. Another historical event, in the United States, was the legal discrimination against Mormons, in specific The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. While both cases have been historical, they have had very different outcomes from each other.

Religious discrimination is defined as the unfavourable treatment of a person because of his or her religious beliefs. Furthermore, this extends to involve mistreatment of someone due to their marriage to or association with an individual of a particular religion (EOC 2014; pers. comm. Cooper 2017).

They had many gods for many different things. Roman people confided in them for good fortune. Early Romans often offered their gods animal sacrifices. They also relied on them for good and bad signs. An example of this is before Marius and his soldiers go to war, they sacrificed an animal to their gods in search of a sign. In the end, they went to war because they believed that the gods approved and were going to take care of

The Romans had a religion that they believed in but was not something concrete and was not of having a central idea. The religion was based on a mix of certain traditions and beliefs. Religion was not never really a big factor in their Empire. The Romans were stubborn with religion and this could be the reason they had an attitude towards these aspects of life. According to St. Augustine’s book Confession, he states that there were a lot of fake gods and there were two major religions in the Roman Empire. The very first religion was Paganism and that’s what his father was known to believe. Then the second main religion was Christianity which his mother believed in. The emperor of Rome at this time, Constantine himself was not a Christian when he conquered Rome, but rather he had a religious conversion when he won the fight with contending tetrarchs at the Milvian bridge in 306 AD, with help of image of the Cross. The

According to the sources the Christians were hated by the people of Rome. According to a source, that was written by Tacitus in 64 AD, they were “ a class hated for their abominations, who are commonly called criminals......... an immense multitude was convicted, not so much on the charge of arson as because of hatred of the human race.” (Tacitus, Annales 1a). They were convicted of crimes due to the fact that the Romans hated them. The

persecuting another based on the belief that one race is superior to the other. In the case