“When I dug into this temple, which had been destroyed by the Christians, I was shocked… I was barely 15, yet I understood in a powerful hands-on, nonintellectual way, how harsh had been Europe's conversion to Christianity. They burned temples, smashed statues, massacred the priests and established extremely harsh laws. By 392 ce, Paganism died.”

Pagan Power in Modern Europe (1999)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Christopher Gérard9

1962

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“Following the baptisms, the new Christians return to their homes and come back with their wives and families to be in their turn prepared for baptism. After all had been baptised, I order that the temples of the false Gods be pulled down and idols broken. I know not how to describe in words the joy I feel before the spectacle of pulling down and destroying the idols by the very people who formerly worshipped them.”

Francis Xavier (1506–1552) Navarrese Basque Roman Catholic saint and missionary

Letter dated February 8, 1545, to the Society of Jesus. Quoted from Goel, S. R. (1985). St. Francis Xavier: The man and his mission.

“He strived to destroy the idols of the infidels. He demolished the famous temple of Mahadeva at Bahrare. The temple was dug out from its foundations and the hole (that remained) reached the water level. Another temple at Jagdar was also demolish. Raja Alamadat had got a big temple constructed at Sinpur. (…) The temple was destroyed”

Sikandar Butshikan

by Sikander
Khwajah Nizamu'd-Din Ahmad bin Muhammad Muqim al-Harbi: Tabqat-i-Akbari translated by B. De, Calcutta, 1973

“When I was repairing the temple of Dwarkadeesh at Dwaraka (on land) I had to demolish a modern building in front of it and I found the 9th Century temple of Vishnu. I got curious and dug further deeper (30 ft) in 1979-80 on land. We found two earlier temples, a whole wall and figures of Vishnu. We dug further and actually found eroded material of a township lying at the bottom. Then arose the question of dating the remains of the township destroyed by the sea. Thermo-luminescence dating revealed a date of 1520 B. C. The Mahabharata refers to Dwaraka …”

Shikaripura Ranganatha Rao (1922–2013) Indian archaeologist

Interview with S. R. Rao at The Hindu, Nov 20 2002.

“I do not say that this is true in every case, but I do say that if priests had not been fond of mutton, lambs never would have been sacrificed to God. Nothing was ever carried to the temple that the priest could not use, and it always so happened that God wanted what his agents liked.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

A Christmas Sermon (1890)
Context: Back of all these superstitions you will find some self-interest. I do not say that this is true in every case, but I do say that if priests had not been fond of mutton, lambs never would have been sacrificed to God. Nothing was ever carried to the temple that the priest could not use, and it always so happened that God wanted what his agents liked. Now, I will not say that all priests have been priests “for revenue only,” but I must say that the history of the world tends to show that the sacerdotal class prefer revenue without religion to religion without revenue.

“Aged 15 or 16, I found some of the priests sexually attractive, they had a way about them... a sexual allure which is a difficult thing to talk about because it's usually meant to be the opposite way round. Boys like me, aged 15 -- if one of them had... yeah, it would have been absolutely no problem for me aged 15. It didn't happen, but it wouldn't have been a problem.”

Colm Tóibín (1955) Irish novelist and writer

Austen was a woeful speller . . . http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/books-arts/austen-was-a-woeful-speller-26694366.html, Irish Independent (30 October 2010)

“I felt that I had been driven from the temple where for nineteen years, along with other believers, I had worshiped the great god News on a daily basis.”

Walter Cronkite (1916–2009) American broadcast journalist

Free the Airwaves! (2002)

“Malik Naib Kafur marched on to Ma'bar, which he also took. He destroyed the golden idol temple (but-khanah i-zarin) of Ma'bar, and the golden idols which for ages had been worshipped by the Hindus of that country. The fragments of the golden temple, and of the broken idols of gold and gilt became the rich spoil of the army”

Alauddin Khalji (1266–1316) Ruler of the Khalji dynasty

Elliot and Dowson, Vol. III : Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, 8 Volumes, Allahabad Reprint, 1964. pp. 204
Quotes from The History of India as told by its own Historians

“……Malik Naib Kafur marched on to Ma’bar, which he also took. He destroyed the golden idol temple (but-khanah i-zarin) of Ma’bar, and the golden idols which for ages had been worshipped by the Hindus of that country. The fragments of the golden temple, and of the broken idols of gold and gilt became the rich spoil of the army…”

Ziauddin Barani (1285–1357) Indian Muslim historian and political thinker (1285–1357)

About Sultan ‘Alau’d-Din Khalji (AD 1296-1316) conquests in Ma‘bar (Tamil Nadu) Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own historians, Vol. III, p. 204
Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi

“When I see how fragmentary the structure of religious knowledge was left by nature, when I see how inadequate all the labors of man had proved for its completion, — and when I look at the glorious and completed dome reared by Christianity, I cannot but feel that other than human hands have been employed in its structure.”

Mark Hopkins (educator) (1802–1887) American educationalist and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 135.

“Pagan renaissance is overdue. It is necessary for Europe to heal its psyche. Under Christianity, Europe learned to reject its ancestors, its past, which cannot be good for its future also. Europe became sick because it tore apart from its own heritage, it had to deny its very roots. If Europe is to be healed spiritually, it must recover its spiritual past--at least, it should not hold it in such dishonor…. For self-recovery, these countries have to revive their old gods. But this is a task which cannot be done mechanically. They have to recapture the consciousness which expressed itself in the language of many gods… In my book, The Word as Revelation: Names of Gods, I spoke of a new kind of pilgrimage: a return to the time of the Gods. Meanwhile, European scholars can do a lot. They should write a history of Europe from the Pagan point of view, which would show how profoundly persecuted Paganism was. They should compile a directory of Pagan temples destroyed, Pagan groves and sacred spots desecrated. European Pagans should also revive some of these sites as their places of pilgrimage.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

Interview in the June, 1996, issue of Antaios, http://web.archive.org/web/20080407092807/https://www.hinduismtoday.com/archives/1999/7/1999-7-07.shtml

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