it's an interesting question, actually.

are christians more likely to tolerate a surveillance state, because they're being watched anyways?

don't snicker too hard. i have long been convinced - through both anecdotal and survey evidence - that the reason so much of the united states rejects climate change has nothing to do with economic logic, fox news brainwashing or any of the usually defined culprits. it's just because god made a covenant with noah that there will be no more floods, so climate change is therefore impossible.

that's why we have rainbows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkxgrrHbKG0

i'm actually streaming this after it's deleted. hooray for ram.

we only have an incomplete understanding of what the sophisticated, hellenistic culture thought of christianity at the time. we know they were generally hostile to it - using language not far distanced from "illiterate goat herders" - but the exact extent of their hostility has, unfortunately, been erased from history via book burnings and organized character assassinations.

the best we have are these allusions. we can construct that a text called against the christians, written by porphyry, must have been extremely popular, widely read and deeply influential. but, we can't read it ourselves.