AGORA: stunning, intellectually and emotionally profound tragedy of intolerance.

I can’t stop thinking about this film. Apparently, many people online cannot either, and I feel a need to respond to the things I’ve read and make my own opinion known.

There are a LOT of very heated debates online centred around this film. I’m not surprised. People watch it and see what they want to see, not what it is. It’s a historical drama - hence, fiction, based in part on historical fact. Many of the discussions I’ve read focus on the portrayal of early Christians in the film. After studying this time period intensely last week, I can fairly confidently say that the film is not as egregiously overstated in that aspect as many insist it is. 

Fact: there was a lot of intolerance, between all religions, at the time. It didn’t matter if you were pagan, Christian, Jewish, whatever - you always had “enemies”. The conflicts between these groups often became very violent; it doesn’t matter who “started it”, the fact remains that these conflicts happened, everywhere, and very many people died because of it. 

Fact: Christianity has never been the best supporter of science, and this has led to the destruction of scientific research in antiquity, whether out of ignorance or simply because the research was considered heretical or blasphemous, since it contradicted the Christian world view. (Also - it was not only Christians who did this, but other groups as well). Evidence to support this can be found in modern times: look at the United States, where there is so much anger, controversy and conflict over teaching evolution (instead of creationism) in schools? 

Fact: many religions are strongly against women being educated and having ideas. Christianity - in particular, early Christianity - is no different. History is full of examples of persecution against women, and followers of the Christian religion are some of the worst offenders (case in point: witch hunts. Seriously; how many thousands of women were murdered for no reason whatsoever, in the name of religion?). 

Those people online who argue that these facts are not facts need to get their facts checked. They demand proof, evidence and support; I answer, if you paid any attention whatsoever to history in school, you’d see evidence there. Also the ultra-Christians who argue that every portrayal of early Christianity in the film is completely false seem not to have read their own Bible. It seems they only want to acknowledge what they see as the good in their history, and completely ignore anything that suggests otherwise. 

I want to be clear, I am not anti-Christian, in any way. I am simply pointing out what history tells us.

There are no groups, religious or otherwise, in history who are completely innocent of any wrongdoing. No one. Some groups are guiltier of more horrendous crimes than others, it is true, but even so the most violent groups are not necessarily indicative of the feelings of others. In simpler terms: the violent groups of Christians are usually smaller, splinter groups of fundamentalists, instead of the larger collective acting out as a whole. The same applies to other religions, too. Rarely are violent actions taken by, or even supported by, the entire group. 

Agora is a film about intolerance, and the tragedies that occur because of it. Being a historical drama, of course the film won’t be completely historically accurate. It doesn’t need to be. However it gets enough of the facts right to present an argument for tolerance - sadly, many miss this point, and focus instead on what they see as an attack on Christianity, or an allegorical attack on Islam, or whatever the case may be. The angry debates online simply reflect the film’s conflicts, as people argue science vs. religion, historical fact vs. historical fiction, reason and rationality vs. fundamentalism, Christianity vs. everything. I find the religious fundamentalists the most amusing, as they argue vehemently against everything the film stands for and try to make the point that they are tolerant… while rapidly contradicting themselves. It is all evidence to support the fact that intolerance is as prevalent today as it was then, and only tragedy will result from it.

**Note: This was originally posted on my Tumblr blog, myriadthought.tumblr.com, and has recently been "re-blogged" quite a lot.