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Edited on Thu Sep-14-06 04:49 PM by happyslug
The latest example was the Soviet Union forcing Eastern Europe to adopt Communism after WWII. At the same time it is a very bad way to spread the word of ANY Movement, you get very weak supporters of the movement who the first chance they get will revert to old habits (Thus most scholars of any movement avoid forced conversions if possible).
As to you list, many of the cases you site are tied in with political disputes masked under the name of Religion. For example the Protestant vs Catholic Wars had more to do with who was to rule Germany, France the Britain than as to one religion or the other. Did you want to be allied with Rome and Southern Europe or did you want to be allied with the North German, Danes and Swedes? (This was the Catholic-Lutheran Split). Did you want to be allied with the poor, the new Middle Class or the old nobility? (The Catholic, Puritan, Anglican Split in England). The Puritan/Reform Church tended to be the religion adopted by the upper Middle Class during the last 500 years, while in most Catholic Countries the poor and Nobility stayed Catholic. Even Karl Marx observed that the Protestant Reformation and the wars of the Reformation had more to do with the raise of the Upper Middle Class and their fight with the old Nobility for control of their own country and other European Countries than any religious dispute.
The Russian Pogroms,, while anti-Jewish, had more to do with using the Jews as a Scape Goat for the problem of the Russian Peasant than any real hated of the Jews (Real Anti-Semites would only off with the influence of the Concept of the "Super-man" pushed by Nietzsche but even the Nazis tended to use Antisemitism as an Excuse to blame anyone but themselves for the shortcomings of Nazism).
The Crusades, had strong religion implications, but no one goes a 1000 miles for God, on the other hand if promise riches people will travel. The Peasant Crusade seems to be the only one with strong religious fever, but it was destroyed by the Seljuk Turks even before the Crusade arrived in Palestine. The "First Crusade" of the following year had more to do with the members of the Crusades obtaining land to rule than "Freeing" the Holy lands from the Turks (In fact after the Crusade moved into what is now Turkey, the leaders of the First Crusade abandoned they oath of allegiance to the Eastern Emperor and set of independent kingdoms of their own to rule for the next 150 years). The Fourth Crusade was even condemned by the Pope before it even left Venice for by then it was clear Constantinople was the real target, do to all of its wealth (it was by far the largest and richest City in the World at that time). That Crusade had nothing to do with Religion and everything to do with getting rich quick (The other Crusaded were less secular and more religious and that was the main reason they all failed, through NONE of the Crusaders converted anyone by the sword and often left Muslims worship in the ares controlled by the Crusading States).
Now Cortez did want to to use force to convert the Mexicans to be Catholics, but his Priest convinced him NOT to do so. Thus the conversion in Mexico was NOT by the Sword but by example (Through the Spanish Government did suppress the old Aztec religion given its tendency to human sacrifices). Even today in Peru you have non-Catholic natives who worship the old gods, do to the fact that the Church did NOT focally convert them to the Cross). Now some of the Conquistadors did convert by the Sword, but these tend not to stay Catholic through some such ares later converted to Catholicism on their own.
Even in the Middle ages, scholars were talk about the old gods and how they were not quite dead yet, for while the Church opposed the retention of Pagan beliefs, the church was hard press to convert everyone by force (The Church's biggest weapon on conversion during the Middle ages was ties with other larger Catholic states, thus to be close to other European States one had to be Catholic or in the case of Eastern Europe Orthodox).
In Late Roman period, forcible conversions were rare, through you did have some pagan Priests and Priestess killed by Christian Mobs, but mostly after some sort of Crisis within the Empire. Thus Christan would take over temples under Constantine, but worshiping pagan gods was NOT illegal (and would NOT be illegal till the time of Justinian 200 years later). In the early fifth century as the Roman empire declined, you had further attacks on old Temples and an occasional killing of some Pagan Priest or Priestess, through these had more to do with a cover story to loot the temple to get more money for the Imperial Treasury (After Constantine the main form of money was Gold coins, Rome had no ready source of Gold except the old temples so the Emperors seems to have encourage their Christan Followers to loot those temples, thus the better explanation for the sacking of the ancient temples by the early Christians was the late Roman Emperors were looting these temples under the excuse of Religion so the Emperors could have Gold to pay the Army and pay off some of the barbarian hordes pushing into the Empire at that time).
My point is it is RARE for religion to be the REASON for a Forced Conversion or some sort of war or Conflict, on the other hand it has been a very convenient excuse when someone wants an excuse. Do NOT confuse an excuse with a reason, such confusion will NOT permit you to understand what is going on in the world even today.
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