From: Nick Brooke (100270.337@CompuServe.COM)
Date: Mon 01 Jul 1996 - 10:44:08 EEST
______
Martin wrote:
> The Lunars are proselytizers while the Romans and Israelis weren't/aren't.
You could argue that the Romans' general attitude of religious tolerance and
their willingness to adopt weird foreign cults (with only two exceptions: the
Bacchanalia and Christianity) mirrors that of the Lunars (and, like the Lunars,
the Romans tried to "tone down" cults that were a little too extreme, viz.
Cybele's castrati). But I agree with the general sentiment: the Lunar Empire
possesses an ideological, proselytising faith, which the Romans didn't.
> The best historical parallel _in_that_respect_ ... is the Islamic Conquest.
Agreed. For another (more political) parallel for the Lunar Empire and Lunar
> Tolerant to a point, but expansionist. Few other states combined widespread
> military conquest with religious conversion.
Way, look at Revolutionary France (spreading Liberty, Fraternity and Equality)
or Soviet Russia (spreading Marxism-Leninism through the Communist
Internationale). These, like Islam, have the advantage of being radical new
philosophies, applicable to everyone and building a better world for all, which
were picked up and utilised by an expanding empire, assailing the existing,
complacent world order by their impact. They were also attacked by outsiders for
the unpleasant *symptoms* (Terrors, Purges, Gulags, the Bat) of their attempts
to realise a Utopian future for all.
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Nick
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