Fwd: [stateyourcause] Animal, human welfare and Gladiator.

[Guest guest]

Anthony <arthur_cravan wrote:stateyourcause

" Anthony "

Sat, 22 May 2004 02:38:41 -0000

[stateyourcause] Animal, human welfare and Gladiator.

 

Films like the modern " Gladiator " bolster our popular image of

antiquity as brutal and horrible, and often even glorify its violent

aspects. The message is that violence is innate and eternal in the

human character. Well, I disagree with this, and believe human

brutality and violence to be socially and economically rooted ~ but I

don`t wish to go into that here. Instead, I want to say some things

many may be unaware of, regarding the Graeco-Roman world:

1) The Graeco-Roman world wasn`t just bloody games and wars. People

lived, ate, made love, cared for one another and practised medicine

etc.

2) The final centuries of the Roman Empire saw increasing demands for

the abolition of animal and human abuse and a growing abolitionist

movement demanding the end of the animal and human killings in the

arenas.

3) Also, demands for the abolition of animal sacrifices and for the

spread of vegetarianism.

4) These movements were pioneered by pagans. Even had the Empire not

become Christian, it looks as though the cruel " Games " and animal

sacrifices would have been abolished, as Roman society was becoming

more morally aware.

5) Although the coming to state power of Christianity did abolish in

one swoop both the " Games " and the sacrifices, it also scrapped the

vegetarian movement. Whilst early Jewish Christians were vegetarian,

St. Paul`s influence wiped out vegetarianism, which, by the Middle

Ages, became an offence. It also scrapped the struggling animal

welfare movement which was being pioneered by pagans such as

PORPHYRY. Early Christians who DID champion animal welfare included

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, called " Golden Mouth " because of his eloquence

in debate.

6) The vicious chariot races continued for a long time under

Christian control. Homosexuals were burned alive and pagans drowned

in the Bosphorus.

 

History is too rich and varied, however, to see humans dismissed as

brutish and cruel, when most are not, or not wittingly, and every

period of history has had its enlightened souls, who have always

opposed cruelty and violence!

 

Anthony.