this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2025
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Explanation: In late antiquity, once Christianity was in power, it dropped the whole "We just want to coexist 🥺" thing that prior generations of Christians had pled to the authorities, and promptly set to book burnings, mob killings of pagans, destruction of temples, and defacement of objects, especially of those terrible temptress pagan goddesses, making good Christian men think impure thoughts by their very visages!
Never realized that defacing is a literal term.
Language is a funny thing, isn't it?
One of the best novels I've read that's set in late antiquity was Julian by Gore Vidal. It gets into the politics of religion before and during his reign, and how the Christians were angling to be the only game in town by monopolizing religion in Roman society.
Fascinating stuff.
Graven images are forbidden in that faith which everyone seems to forget.
edit: This is in the 10 commandments. It’s weird that Christians now have so many graven images
The destruction of statues of goddesses, however, was accompanied by a great deal of exceptional misogyny, sexual self-loathing, and aggressive asceticism in addition.
“Graven images are forbidden”
Engraves an image in/on everything
Graven images are representations of human beings. It is identical to how Islam forbids images of Mohammed because you are supposed to worship god rather than the statute or painting. Judaism and Christianity both have this rule.
Im not saying the destruction is right but this is motivated by the same beliefs that lead the Taliban to destroy non-Islamic statutes. Again not saying this was right but this is why it happened.
It’s almost like religions generally do why they think will get them more followers/tithes rather than follow any strict moral codes…
Not just human beings, anything.
Wikipedia:
Really much more about worshipping them than about making them though.