Polytheism, paganism, pluralism, new age spiritualism and secular governance have all stood for religious freedom and equality, whilst the horrific spectre of oppression and violent coercion have resulted mostly from Abrahamic monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
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Not only were polytheist pagans naturally tolerant of others' gods, but they were also not so sanctimonious so as to consider others' gods 'wrong' or delusional. Beliefs had their own sake, gods their own purposes, and humans their own beliefs. People worshipped as was appropriate, not according to universal doctrines of declared truth.
“In some ways, this matter of being "right" was a concern unique to Christianity. The Roman Empire was populated with religions of all kinds: family religions, local religions, city religions, state religions. Virtually everyone in this mind-boggling complexity, except the Jews, worshipped numerous gods in numerous ways. So far as we can tell, this was almost never recognized as a problem. No one, that is, thought it was contradictory, or even problematic, to worship Jupiter and Venus and Mars and others of the "great" gods, along with local gods of your city and the lesser divine beings who looked over your crops, your daily affairs, your wife in childbirth, your daughter in sickness, and your son in his love life. Multiplicity bred respect and, for the most part, plurality bred tolerance. No one had the sense that if they were right to worship their gods by the means appropriate to them, you were therefore wrong to worship your gods. [...] But then came Christianity.”
"Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman (2003)1
Do not think that religious tolerance in the classical era was at all liberal, compared to today's secular examples. The Roman Empire surely terrorized various religious minorities but it did for the most part permit all the others to exist peacefully. But then something changed. The empire was pluralistic and permitted many thousands of religions and cults, but after the rise of Pauline Christianity it is plunged into a dark age of religious intolerance and oppression. Merely believing the wrong things on even obscure points of theology could result in torture. Monotheism, through its simple insistence on one god, alone, paved the way for religious intolerance.
The God of the Abrahamic religions, so far as it is concerned in The Koran, and The Bible and in history, hates opposing Gods. The Israelites are described as being commanded by God, time and time again, to wage war against and kill nonbelieving pagan because they dare to worship icons, fake gods, and any number of things that are not Jehovah. A long series of biblical condemnations set in motion the wheels of a series of religions deeply hostile to all other religions. Christianity started out tolerant and peaceful: the first Christians, the gnostics and ebionites, accepted respectively that their religion was one interpretation of the truth amongst many, or that it was a devout, personal path and not something that could be enforced on to others. Centuries later, though, the Pauline Christians arose and murdered their more peaceful predecessors, preparing Christianity to embrace the Dark Ages like no other religion could, or would, have.
Christian orthodoxy was responsible for wiping out many thousands of heretics, such as the Ebionites for not believing the right things about the physical fathership of Jesus, the gnostics, the Marcionites who dared not to believe in the Hebrew scriptures, the Waldenses, the Cathars, the Jews and many other unfortunate victims fell foul of the Mosaic creed of "no other god before Jehovah".
Sigmund Freud's book Moses and Monotheism drew the same conclusions: the teachings of Moses are contrary to the peaceful co-existence of religions. "More recently, Bernard Lewis and Mark Cohen have argued that the modern understanding of tolerance, involving concepts of national identity and equal citizenship for persons of different religions, was not considered a value by pre-modern Muslims or Christians, due to the implications of monotheism. The historian G.R. Elton explains that in pre-modern times, monotheists viewed such toleration as a sign of weakness or even wickedness towards God"2. This irrational play-fighting with imaginary friends would be humorous and ridiculous, if it were not for the serious and deadly consequences it has had in history.
Many powerful religions become oppressive, monstrous brutes. They annex schools and subvert national education to their own ends, they enforce strict moral codes in accordance with their beliefs, and sometimes even such as during the Christian Dark Ages, they violently and bloodily suppress dissent. During such times, minor religious groups have no choice but to argue for religious tolerance as a matter of self-survival. But even during less stressful centuries, it tends to be the tolerant small religions that become national celebrities whereas intolerant religions tend to whither away. Those who argue for religious freedom (whether they mean it or not) will become both popular and officially recognized, and all the new recruits will stand by the doctrine of toleration. So even if the original authorities really wanted religions to be considered equal, their followers will embrace such an idea. Therefore, the history of developing societies has been that growing religious movements are generally tolerant and existing institutionalized religions were normally oppressive. All of this occurs no matter if the underlying beliefs of the religion are open or closed to others' beliefs. This general trend can emerge even from exclusivist beliefs. The sociologist of religion Steve Bruce describes the example of the Secession and the Free Church:
“Despite have begun as firm believers in religious coercion, the Secession and the Free Church gradually came to argue for religious freedom, in defence first of their own rights, and then of the rights of dissenters generally; finally they came to see the value of the general principal of religious toleration. But the evolution was a slow and painful process, often scarred by the expulsion of those clergymen who promoted the cause of toleration ten years too early. [...]
There is no mystery about the circumstance which led to the reluctant acceptance of pluralism: their own failure to win over the majority of the Church of Scotland. Only when each wave of dissent realized that it could not succeed in taking over the instruments of state coercion did it begin to find the use of such instruments offensive.
Fission created a plurality of organizations and the divisions of the people of God meant that the price of enforcing conformity was too high for a modern democratic state. The consequence, quite undesired by most of those who brought it about, was religious toleration and the rise of the secular state.”
"Religion in the Modern World: From Cathedrals to Cults" by Steve Bruce (1996)3
So although some types of religion, such as polytheism, are naturally tolerant towards others' beliefs, and others such as Abrahamic monotheism (e.g. Judaism, Christianity and Islam) are largely hostile to 'heathens', the existence of different beliefs side-by-side has had the effect of eventually convincing everyone responsible of the benefits of peaceful pluralism. Although many religionists wish no such thing as to have others' beliefs made equal to their own, their voices are only heard in the first place because of the very secular principal of equality. When a singular religion becomes entrenched, and encroaches upon the arenas of public education and politics, though, a very dangerous possibility emerges: That its leaders, comfortable in power, will decreasingly see the need for tolerance. Secular government needs to always be cautious of a possible new dark age.
“Pagans believe that no one belief system is correct and that each person should have the freedom to come themselves to the path of their choice. [...] For all Pagans there is no place for either dogma or proselytising.”
"Pagan Pathways" by Harvey & Hardman (1995)4
A similar liberal strain exists within New Age culture. Esalen, California, is an immensely important place and a foreground of the creation of modern New Age spirituality. Two such forefathers, Messrs Murphy and Prise, frequently repeated the saying that "no one captures the flag", "a phrase heard at Esalen to this day which means that every religion, fad and idea has equal access as long as it does not try to exclude or dominate the others. In practice, this ruled out the Abrahamic religions, but welcomed Yogic and Vedic philosophy, Zen Buddhism and Taoism, which are non-theistic and easy-going about orthodoxy"5.
However nonsensical you may consider New Age beliefs to be in general, their approach to religious tolerance is commendable. It is naturally peaceful. It does, however, have a shortcoming. Some beliefs and practices are deluded and wrong, and unfortunately the let-be attitude of many modern spiritualists leaves many people with few tools to determine what is actually true. The New Age veers so far towards unconditional acceptance that it looses its critical faculties. A half-way point is ideal: you allow intellectual debate, but in practice you do not actively discriminate between religious groups. Luckily, this is the model held at the heart of secular methods of governance.
Governments cannot return to the barbarism of history by trying to enforce one religion at the expense of others. It results in bloodshed and suffering. Democratic governance rules over all people, no matter what their beliefs are. Freedom of conscience and belief are democratic values, and they entail the separation of church and state. This allows and ensures religious freedom, as long no religion tries to 'capture the flag' and discriminate against others. So, if freedom is values, one religion cannot discriminate against others even if they are compelled to by their creed. This keeps the monotheists and extremists within the reach of the law, and is the firm structure that allows pluralism to work, granting the greatest amount of intellectual and religious freedom and denying rights only to those who would reduce the freedom of others.
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Bruce, Steve
"Religion in the Modern World: From Cathedrals to Cults" (1996). Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. [Book Review]
Ehrman, Bart
"Lost Christianities" (2003 hardback). Oxford University Press, New York, USA.
Harvey, Graham & Hardman, Charlotte
"Pagan Pathways" (1995). First published by Thorsons 1995. All quotes taken from Thorsons 2000 edition.
By Vexen Crabtree 2008 Jan 23