Theocracy should work like Mercantilism

[ASL Veteran]

The Nazis attempt clearly would have worked. They started the whole (just from thetop of my head) mega holocaust-thing in -44. A year later, they were no more. And during that time they killed ca 10 million jews/minorities. If they would have started this whole thing earlier, say 1940, and put their powder there instead of in the Soviet Union, then they would surely have "eradictated" a heckuvalot of minorities in Europe. (yes I do know that stalin was going to invade hitler sooner or later but whatevs)
The Spanish Inquisition was quite efficent as well. It didn't kill all the muslims/jews in Spain, but pushed away almost all to the Ottomans and Moors. That's two different ways of removing religions.
And Islam (and christianity too for that matter, I just lack examples right here and now) wiped out lots of well organized religions on their way. Zoroastranism, manuism and all that jazz. How can you say that the people there just stopped to believe in it? It was simply a widestretched genocide, as that was how stuff worked in ancient times. You and your army comes to a city of non-believers, raze it, kill the people inside and build a new one. It's when the other religion gets worked into society that pushing it out gets hard.

Alas, the point is you can really wipe out anything and anyone if you just want it bad enough.

Clearly there were invasions and attempts at enforced 'conversion'. I believe it was either Charlemagne or someone associated with his family tree who was making a concerted effort to subjegate and Christianize a "heathen" Denmark. The Teutonic Knights are another obvious example. Those are external wars though (external to the various states involved) which I was not factoring in because the motivation for those wars could either be religious in nature, or there may be other motivations and the religious factor is merely a cover story. You can already happily invade other civilizations and raze their cities so you can already perform those types of activities in Civ.

However, I would also like to point out that at the time Christianity was starting to really take root inside the Roman empire, the empire was being overrun by various ... "Barbarian" for lack of a better term .... tribes. Vandals, Goths, Visigoths, Franks, Saxons, Huns, etc. Certainly you don't think that the process by which these various tribes were "Christianized" was by the sword? The story of how Russia became orthodox christian seems pretty typical of how these 'conversions' take place ... warlord / chieftain is either awed by some form of religious display / victory in battle attributed to a christian symbol / a political calculation that being in league with a christian state is in their interests who then tells his people that they are all christians now. Naturally there will be some resistance to the 'new' god, but when the national leader is telling you that's the way to go, people would listen. The interesting part about the Teutonic Knights is that their opponent (I believe it was the Lithuanians with some Polish assistance - I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong) eventually did convert to christianity yet the Teutonic Knights continued to attack.

In Norway (and forgive me but I'm going on memory here - always dangerous on a international message board) I seem to recall that many Vikings converted to Christianity when missionaries set up tests to prove that the christian gods were stronger than the pagan gods ... something along the lines of a Berserker must pass through a pagan god fire and a christian god fire and the berserker could pass through the pagan fire but not the christian one proving the potency of the christian god. The story of how England's christianity survived the Saxon invasion is similar in that various warlords became christian and their christian relics ... crosses or whatever ... gave them victory in battle proving the old gods as weaker than the christian god. So, my statement that people simply stopped believing in the 'old gods' is accurate. It's probably amazing that Christianity in the western world survived at all to some degree.

After writing all this, I hope I don't come across as a bible thumping christian since I haven't attended a day of church in my entire life. I would also not take the Nazi example of attempted Jewish eradication (within Germany and their occupied territories) as an example of what a normal or average state would be capable of. The levels of organization, logistics, and mechanization of their deeds could not possibly have been matched by any nation prior to the invention of the railroad at a minimum and probably even after that since the entire state would have to be geared and designed with that intent in mind along with having all the secret police organizations and the spare manpower to send house to house to round everyone up. I fail to see how the reconquista could be anywhere near as efficient as the third reich as far as eradicating muslims in spain. Interestingly enough, El Cid (sorry in advance to our Spanish posters but I'm going on memory here) fought both against muslims and for the muslims in Spain and it seems like the two communities coexisted for many many years. I simply can't agree to your last statement which I interpret as "where there's a will there's a way" and will just agree to disagree with you there. Someone can say they believe differently than how they used to when threatened with violence, but will they believe differently in their hearts and minds? Perhaps not.

 

[Jaja]

Alrity then.

In Norway (and forgive me but I'm going on memory here - always dangerous on a international message board) I seem to recall that many Vikings converted to Christianity when missionaries set up tests to prove that the christian gods were stronger than the pagan gods ... something along the lines of a Berserker must pass through a pagan god fire and a christian god fire and the berserker could pass through the pagan fire but not the christian one proving the potency of the christian god. The story of how England's christianity survived the Saxon invasion is similar in that various warlords became christian and their christian relics ... crosses or whatever ... gave them victory in battle proving the old gods as weaker than the christian god. So, my statement that people simply stopped believing in the 'old gods' is accurate. It's probably amazing that Christianity in the western world survived at all to some degree.

This is clearly just simple smartness on the christian side. The viking tribes were barbarian as hell. They lacked civlization to a huge degree, and what they managed to do was merely something that any off-lying band of warriors could do to a relatively unprotected neighbour. To trick them (and thus prolly' the rest of the barbarians round central Europe) into converting by these kinds of "tests" couldn't have been a real problem. (and for the record, there was never anything called a "berserker", apart from possibly the ancestors of todays football-huligans)

Also, most of the christian convertations around Europe was due to group-pressure. A couple of danes in the south choose to convert to christ. because they want better trade with the [christians] and perhaps protection from the pope against norman invasions. And then a bunch of more danes convert to prevent that the first tribe get trading supremacy with Europe. And so on. Either you would stand by as a pathetic tribe from the north that everyone hated and lacked civilization and merely could wait to get eaten up by the rest. Or you would assimilate as all the rest and thus gain wealth and other neat thingies. In at least Sweden, a lot of people said they believed in christ, but when it got to some stuff they still prayed (bloted) to the old gods. As this proves, people hardly just ran to the cross as soon as they had heard that their leader had won a skirmish against the 'rus or something.
However, regular convertions are not to be applied when the foreign religion is inside your state, becuase it simply doesn't work as the believers are probably far to advanced in their mind to simply switch sides. And even if they do, people who think they didn't will probably lynch them anyway.

What I mean with the last statement is that simply a state CAN put all its powder there. If fanatic and reassuring enough, a state can make its people do anything. Of course there is zillionths of examples here, some more recent than others. *cough*2003*cough*
The idea is that if the state lets the people do it's dirty work, they wont actually have to spend all that much into it. Note that this is quite "iffy" as it would hardly be easy to do. But through years of propaganding, eventually, the people hate them and them and kill them and them. If not, the "thems" will probably have become so afraid they will have escopen.

Interestingly enough, El Cid (sorry in advance to our Spanish posters but I'm going on memory here) fought both against muslims and for the muslims in Spain and it seems like the two communities coexisted for many many years.

Mmyes, but that was due to simply "thatishowitis-iness". Communities coexist all over. It was all but a peaceful coexistence but no side was strong enough to take the other down. In a strange world you could compare it to India'n'Pakistan these days. But there, both sides are TOO strong. If you get my point? And the Cid kind of had other priorities than bothering about religious philosophications. I'm not going to rat about that because MAYBE some dude fancies this chap the father of his fatherland so I'll let it be.