To answer the question posed by the first post there has to my knowledge of religious history one point in time of religious precepts that advocated peace and acceptance, not toleration, but pure unconditional acceptance of all peoples male and female. During the early Christianity, many ideas floated around from Egypt to Rome of Christ's teachings meaning an abundance of different gospels that people accepted and read. Among these different teachings you had two major camps: the Gnostics and the Orthodoxy. The Orthodoxy were to be well organized and would eventually slaughter the people of the Gnostic camp. The Gnostics were unorganized and practiced a range of religious and ideologies, but the basic were the universal for the movement. These included equality of the sexes even within the church, the knowledge and teaching that the gospels were not in actuality about Jesus but rather teachings on how one should live with their fellow man (though in some gospels such as Judas or Mary the teachings are secret and require that knowledge to be passed down orally in order for the true meanings to be understood), and the rejection of the old, jealous, and often tyrannical gods (this includes the god of the Jews) for the acceptance of a creator that seems really indifferent of Humanity placing instead our goals toward helping and benefiting each other. The aspect of God was polytheistic in a sense that the gods that ruled Humanity before Jesus' teaching were demi and false gods that did not deserve our faith and exaltation because they had nothing to really do with our lives. And what is even more remarkable is the fact that among these gnostic groups hierarchy was rejected for a more fair approach toward societal ideals that gave each individual the opportunity to teach and learn, allowing outsiders and differences to enter in the community. A completely revolutionary approach, even by our standards today, these people taught and understood that society was in a constant state of flux and the best way to make a better community was to allow change to take place. Of course, the Orthodoxy claimed these people were heretics and slaughtered them for the more stagnant view of the world and Humanity almost wiping out there presence in our history (thank the universe for archaeology) and by the 4th century none of these communities survived the purging of the Church. If you would like to learn more pick up some books on gnostism, especially Sethian gnostism, I mean they make Judas a hero!

Just some info on myself. Born Jewish and at one point I was a practicing Orthodox. Now I don't believe in the religious view of god or even really god, I consider my spiritual needs met by what I learn and the knowledge that everything in the Universe is connected and yet separate, a kind of yin and yang philosophy that life is a struggle of balance. As for the history presented I did the majority of my undergrad at Washington University in St. Louis where I took every class the religious studies department offered for non degrees as well as reading a lot of books about different religion's history. I would just like to emphasize that I do not have a degree in religious studies and I do not pretend to be a scholar in the subject, rather what I have presented above is a summary based upon books and papers by true scholars in the subject.