He believes people in antiquity, middle ages and further on thought the same way we do today.
I've debated this issue with some self-described historians, and its quite funny that when I point out the obvious (but contriversial) similarities in past and contemporary human nature and behaviour of state institutions, they always resort to this nonsensical "you don't know what people thought back then, humans change blah blah. They were different, they had different morals!"
No, human behaviour and morals haven't changed much, you can see that from just reading past authors, like ancient philosophers, including Jesus and classical liberal intellectuals and humanists and so forth. They all wanted humans to be free and prosperous and many had the same elementary moral principles. State institutions have always behaved the same way, they've always functioned for the interests of the ruling classes, regardless whether its the nation-state systems of later Europe, or the Roman Empire, or Arab Empires.
And wars, which
violent institutions tend to wage, are fought for real reasons, like wealth and power, not for theological interpitations. Saying that the Muslims conquered their empires to spread Islam is like saying that United States conquered Iraq to spread democracy, or Britain invaded India to tame the barbarians, or that the US civil war was fought because of slavery. The declared reasons for the war are rarely the real ones.
Do You think atheism and religious indifference was as wide-spreaded centuries ago as today? Do You think all rulers are areligious?
Obviously the structure of society has changed, people no longer live in confined villages and have more sources of information, not just the local priest and the landlord and the occasional merchant. So, obviously, that results in a substancial changes in people's opinions and level of knowladge, and in response, the state institutions first came up with the propaganda methods like they used in Nazi Germany and Britain, primarily. But now that has proven ineffiecent, and now private concentrations of power and state institutions and their puppet intellectuals have doctored fluid doctrines to explain institutional coercion, economic abuse and aggression. Doctrines like "fighting terrorism", "clash of civilizations", "free markets", "the retiring baby-boomers" which are more difficult for the average folk to deeply understand but sound nice/scary or convincing. Whereas leaders previously could just say "God wills it!" to the peasants.
Yes, leaders were religious, because much of their power was based on the group mentality, on the irrational attidutes of submission to authority, which still dominate politics in many ways, but is no longer as religious in nature. However, back then, being seemingly religious was an institutional demand. I mean, when the Pope wanted to get rid of someone, he accused them of heresy or atheism.
Do You think christianity, which You can't call unorganised even before Nicea, grew with the help of some state?
Christianity was very disorganized before that. There was no compulsory organization, no "ministery of truth" like they had in totalitarian societies, like the soviet union and the catholic church, nothing to enforce some dogmas or interpitations above the rest. Basically, it was a group faithful and disorganized preachers, who were not in the movement because of group mentality but because of ideological and theoligical reasons and were not even remotely organized in the way of a coercive state sponsored religious apparatus. That changed when Roman imperial establishment took over.
And what You say only confirms my previous opinion: what Muhammad did was "normal" in his times, but can hardly be example for people today.
No, like back then, and today, it's normal and acceptable when 'we' do it, but if they 'they' do it, it is an outrage. So when a Western power is carrying out atrocities, like wiping out cities, it is acceptable, and when the Christian God wipes out the entire world and carries out hidiously barbaric genocides, it is accetable, even revered, but when
their prophet did it, all the Eurocentrist anti-semites gather around to demonize Islam.
