Christianity in the Roman Empire

I) Strengths of Paganism
  A) religion of worshiping Jupiter, Venus, Juno etc.
  B) antiquity
    1) had been around for a long time
    2) religion of their ancestors
    3) old religion was a good relgion
  C) tolerance
    1) easily absorbed new ideas into their religion
      i) Pantheon was a temple for foriegn gods
    2) eclectric
      i) pick and choose your religion from the gods you want to worship
    3) syncretistic
      i) worshiping same gods only under a differnt name
    4) all extremes were good
  D) ties to political system
    1) many emperors came up through the religious channels
    2) emperors support the religion
  E) Hold on imagination
    1) art and culture played honor to the gods
    2) many festivals - wealthy shared in the celerbration with the poor - the religion was very strong among the poor due to a free steak dinner twice a week