Freethought Almanac

Lighting a candle in toxic air.

February 23: Christians and the Diocletian Persecution (303)

It was on this date, February 23, 303 CE, that the second of only two general persecutions of Christians in the Roman Empire began under the Emperor Diocletian and lasted two years. In spite of the accounts in Sunday School parlayed as fact, and as noted elsewhere, even Catholic historians can document only about a hundred who gave up their lives for their faith – out of a Christian population of 20,000 in Rome. The rest, it turns out, voluntarily abjured the faith and burned a few grains of incense for the Emperor. With Bible in one hand, and the testicles of the secular power in the other, the Church killed many times even their inflated number of martyrs of Manichaeans, Arians, Waldensians, Albigensians, Cathars, Witches, Beguines, Bogomils, Beghards, Lollards, Moors, Hussites, Huguenots, Protestants by Catholics, Catholics by Protestants, and, of course, Jews…

To read more, go to THIS LINK.

Originally published February 2003 by Ronald Bruce Meyer.

Ronald Bruce Meyer

Our Fearless Leader.


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July 17: Donald Sutherland

Donald Sutherland (1934) It was on this date, July 17, 1934, that actor Donald Sutherland was born Donald McNichol Sutherland in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. The unusual-looking, lanky actor reached a height of 6'4" (1.93 m) by adulthood, and his distinctive voice seems to have been bequeathed to his son, actor Kiefer Sutherland. After […]



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