You don’t seem to read my posts or even your own sources and keep repeatedly this ludicrous strawman.
The statement below basically reflects what I said and supported with multiple sources.
Yours merely confirmed what I said as accurate.
I won’t add any more detail so maybe you can understand and not keep in pretending I said something else.
Got it now?
The person not reading posts isn't me. Guess who that leaves.
"
The archaeological evidence that has now been collected for most parts of the Roman Empire, however, shows overwhelmingly that the destruction of temples and their reuse as churches were exceptional rather than routine events,...and merely two aspects of the changing sacred landscape in late antiquity."
First of all they say this above in part because you didn't have to destroy a temple to reuse it, JUST THE IDOL representing the deity.
"More common than destruction was the practice of "desacralization" or "deconsecration".
[70] According to the historical writings of
Prudentius, the deconsecration of a temple merely required the removal of the cult statue and altar, and it could be reused. The Law Codes from around the same time as Prudentius say that temples “empty of illicit things” were to suffer no further damage and idols were only “illicit” if they were still venerated.
[71] However, this was often extended to the removal or even destruction of other statues and icons, votive stelae, and all other internal imagery and decoration.
[72]"
Constantine destroyed temples, he reclaimed them for his religion OR laws were enacted to terrorize Christians. You are straight up denying these facts.
"Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire began during the reign of
Constantine the Great (r. 306–337) in the military colony of
Aelia Capitolina (
Jerusalem),
when he destroyed a pagan temple for the purpose of constructing a Christian church.[1] Rome had periodically confiscated church properties, and Constantine was vigorous in reclaiming them whenever these issues were brought to his attention.[2] Christian historians alleged that
Hadrian (2nd century) had constructed a temple to
Aphrodite on the site of the
crucifixion of Jesus on
Golgotha hill in order to suppress
Christian veneration there.
Constantine used that to justify the temple's destruction, saying he was simply reclaiming the property.[3][4][5][6] Using the vocabulary of reclamation, Constantine acquired several more sites of Christian significance in the Holy Land."
Several examples here, and it sounds routine.
discriminatory imperial laws
"From 313, with the exception of the brief reign of
Julian, non-Christians were subject to a variety of hostile and discriminatory imperial laws aimed at suppressing sacrifice and magic and closing any temples that continued their use. "
That quote says late antiquity, this is after that period:
"By the end of the period of Antiquity and the institution of the
Law Codes of Justinian, there was a shift from the generalized legislation which characterized the
Theodosian Code to actions which targeted individual centers of paganism.
[10]: 248–9 The gradual transition towards more localized action, corresponds with the period when most conversions of temples to churches were undertaken: the late 5th and 6th centuries."
Even those who say it wasn't that bad still admit:
"However, by twenty-first century definitions, Constantine can be said to have practiced a mild psychological and economic persecution of pagans."
There is also some confusion on the cause of the temples destruction:
"Temple destruction is attested to in 43 cases in the written sources, but only four have been confirmed by archaeological evidence.
[64] Archaeologists Lavan and Mulryan write that earthquakes, civil conflict and external invasions caused much of the temple destruction of this era.
["
Civil conflict and external invasions?
ANOTHER tactic to destroy temples - "Constantine's principal contribution to the downfall of the temples lay quite simply in his neglect of them"
That is just part of why archaeologists are saying the actual destruction of temples was less than written record shows.
And like I already pointed out they used other methods to destroy paganism:
"The laws were not intended to convert; "the laws were intended to terrorize... Their language was uniformly vehement, and... frequently horrifying"."
The archaeological evidence isn't denying any of this, it's saying actual violence was less and psychological destruction was used instead.
Which is clear in the sources.
"Archaeological evidence, on the other hand, indicates that,
outside of violent rhetoric, there were only isolated incidents of actual violence between Christians and pagans.
Again, why it's important what method Christians terrorized pagans with, I don't know because this is a completely different discussion and one in the wrong period to discuss Christian origins.
