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Tolerance for religions just not for the people who practiced them. Razing whole cities and murdering every male citizen and raping every woman but leaving the

Tolerance for religions just not for the people who practiced them. Razing whole cities and murdering every male citizen and raping every woman but leaving the houses of worship standing because they dgaf about whom their victims worshipped is tolerance I guess.

keiferski 6y ago
They were violent conquerors, like essentially every other civilization in history. They just happened to be better at it. The religious tolerance of the Mongols in comparison to their contemporaries is well-established. > As Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and waged war on most of Asia he became known as one of the most ruthless and brutal warlords of all time. However, one hallmark during his military conquest was his tolerance of all religions. He embraced diversity and decreed religious freedom for everyone.[17] Genghis Khan’s tolerance proved to be beneficial for him. Genghis continued to use religious persecution to his benefit. He would use suppressed people as spies in cities such as Baghdad and then take the land, assimilating all those willing.[18] In Amy Chua's book Day of Empire, she claims that “... the Mongols were more religiously open than any other power in the world.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Mongol_Empire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Mongol_Empir... We should also be very aware that most of the writing we have on the Mongols comes from their enemies. It is almost certainly biased and likely over-exaggerates certain things.
BelenusMordred 6y ago
Imposing modern morals on groups of people from 700 years is a bizarre thing to do. Who exactly are you preaching all this righteousness to?
- haltingproblem 6y ago
  Modern idolatry requires modern morals. Alexander also conquered a large swaths of land, did not read about him sacking cities or imposing rape and death on the subjugated populace. If anything, Greek culture and armies gradually assimilated over the centuries into native cultures.
- drdeca 6y ago
  I'm not really sure why, unless one is a moral relativist. Of course, I don't mean that it isn't necessary to take into account what background situation they are in, and what the consequences of different policies would be. Perhaps gluttony is always bad, but the amount and types of harm it causes depends on the food supply. And similarly, perhaps slavery is always wrong, but different cultures have practiced different forms of it, which had varying degrees of wrongness, perhaps some of which could even have been less wrong than our prison labor system. We do not judge someone who is struggling to pay for their own food much for neglecting to provide food for the homeless they pass by, at least not compared to someone who is very wealthy passing by the same person. In the same way, perhaps we could speak about our current society having much greater wealth and resources than the society of the past, and therefore is able to afford to do more, and therefore has more of an obligation to do more, but none of this should change the truth that good is good and bad is bad, and the nature of the good is the same throughout time.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    > the nature of the good is the same throughout time. At least peoples' perception of good and bad changes a great deal between societies and across time. Not just our society, but every society, sees their perception is correct and everyone else's is wrong.
    - watwut 6y ago
      Yeah, but we dont use this particular thing to claim that what Hitler or Stalin or yesterdays mass shooter did was actually ok. Even further into history, we do judge individuals freely on range of things - perceived betrayal being popular one. We also celebrate historical people quite a lot - and we praise them and put them on pedestal as good examples it would be biased to not talk about flaws too.
      - WalterBright 6y ago
        We kill people today and justify it as good. (Warfare, executions.) There's no guarantee that future societies won't consider us barbaric. > it would be biased to not talk about flaws too Frankly we are obsessed about finding flaws in historical people. For example, Einstein treated his wife not so well. I don't feel any compulsion to bring that into a discussion of his achievements. It doesn't diminish his achievements.
krageon 6y ago
You're describing every army. When violence is done, the things you describe happen. We all understand that. We're trying to talk about the other things that also happened.

keiferski 6y ago

They were violent conquerors, like essentially every other civilization in history. They just happened to be better at it. The religious tolerance of the Mongols in comparison to their contemporaries is well-established. > As Genghis Khan united the Mongol tribes and waged war on most of Asia he became known as one of the most ruthless and brutal warlords of all time. However, one hallmark during his military conquest was his tolerance of all religions. He embraced diversity and decreed religious freedom for everyone.[17] Genghis Khan’s tolerance proved to be beneficial for him. Genghis continued to use religious persecution to his benefit. He would use suppressed people as spies in cities such as Baghdad and then take the land, assimilating all those willing.[18] In Amy Chua's book Day of Empire, she claims that “... the Mongols were more religiously open than any other power in the world.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Mongol_Empire https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Mongol_Empir... We should also be very aware that most of the writing we have on the Mongols comes from their enemies. It is almost certainly biased and likely over-exaggerates certain things.

BelenusMordred 6y ago

Imposing modern morals on groups of people from 700 years is a bizarre thing to do. Who exactly are you preaching all this righteousness to?

haltingproblem 6y ago
Modern idolatry requires modern morals. Alexander also conquered a large swaths of land, did not read about him sacking cities or imposing rape and death on the subjugated populace. If anything, Greek culture and armies gradually assimilated over the centuries into native cultures.
drdeca 6y ago
I'm not really sure why, unless one is a moral relativist. Of course, I don't mean that it isn't necessary to take into account what background situation they are in, and what the consequences of different policies would be. Perhaps gluttony is always bad, but the amount and types of harm it causes depends on the food supply. And similarly, perhaps slavery is always wrong, but different cultures have practiced different forms of it, which had varying degrees of wrongness, perhaps some of which could even have been less wrong than our prison labor system. We do not judge someone who is struggling to pay for their own food much for neglecting to provide food for the homeless they pass by, at least not compared to someone who is very wealthy passing by the same person. In the same way, perhaps we could speak about our current society having much greater wealth and resources than the society of the past, and therefore is able to afford to do more, and therefore has more of an obligation to do more, but none of this should change the truth that good is good and bad is bad, and the nature of the good is the same throughout time.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  > the nature of the good is the same throughout time. At least peoples' perception of good and bad changes a great deal between societies and across time. Not just our society, but every society, sees their perception is correct and everyone else's is wrong.
  - watwut 6y ago
    Yeah, but we dont use this particular thing to claim that what Hitler or Stalin or yesterdays mass shooter did was actually ok. Even further into history, we do judge individuals freely on range of things - perceived betrayal being popular one. We also celebrate historical people quite a lot - and we praise them and put them on pedestal as good examples it would be biased to not talk about flaws too.
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      We kill people today and justify it as good. (Warfare, executions.) There's no guarantee that future societies won't consider us barbaric. > it would be biased to not talk about flaws too Frankly we are obsessed about finding flaws in historical people. For example, Einstein treated his wife not so well. I don't feel any compulsion to bring that into a discussion of his achievements. It doesn't diminish his achievements.

krageon 6y ago

You're describing every army. When violence is done, the things you describe happen. We all understand that. We're trying to talk about the other things that also happened.