This is an attempt to move an online debate on my LJ

[fpb]

The Cuckoo: your dogma has no bearing whatever on historical fact, of which you are woefully ignorant. The sad thing is the cheerful confidence with which you retail the same old legends. For instance, the vast majority of early churches was built well away from pagan sites. You may have some fourth-hand notion of Gregory I's libellus responsorum to Augustine of Canterbury, allowing him to take over and adapt local rituals; but the fools who long ago added that item to the usual roster of rationalist cliches did not realize that Gregory meant that permission as an exception. IN point of fact, the transformation of pagan holy places into Christian churches is so rare, even in England (which is what Gregory was speaking about), that a special place-name for this kind of site was invented: Harrow (hence Harrow-on-the-Hill and so on). Apart from anything else, pagan temples in general did not meet the needs of Christian churches, such as meeting halls able to hold hundreds of faithful and burial areas in the immediate proximity. (Pagans always buried their dead outside the city walls, and never in sight of a temple.)

In short, I would tell you not to talk of what you don't know, but the trouble is that your situation is worse: you are ignorant and think you know.