US Forces fighting Chrisitian Organisation in Uganda

[Charles Darwin]

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How dare he!?

Funny how christians are all for killing muslim terrorists but boy when the terrorists are christians..whole nother story!

[Arctic_Guy]

Is there a hidden agreement to ignore history completely?

Apparantly so, because the Crusades were a Christian response to Islamic invasion of their homelands. Contrary to your post, Christian Europe did not arbitrarily attack Muslim lands without provocation.

Go back and study. Who hit who first? Who reacted to save their homes from foreign influence and power. Is a man, Christian or otherwise, not entitled to protect what is his own?

The pope did not wake up one day and decide to start a fight with Islam. The fight was upon them and they reacted to it. In point of fact, every culture that has come into contact with the Muslim hoards has had a similar problem. Cough up a little history about Islamic wars with Hindu lands to the east, Buddhists in the far Asian lands and minor native religions in SouthEast Asia. They have even attacked the atheist government of Russia to the north.

It's always the same. Islam first, Islam by the sword and Islam by self-justified right to rule the planet by peace if possible by murder if necessary. Read the Qur'an and you will find their justification written there. Study history and you will find it written in blood. Read the posts written here and you will find their crimes hidden by lies.

Is there a hidden agreement to ignore history completely? Yes there is. The motive apparently is to denigrate Christianity by prejudice by the use of lies, propaganda, and any illogic that comes to hand.

Those that lump all religions into a single bundle of wickedness should consider this: that Islam is the only religion ON THE PLANET with a doctrine to justify lying.

Any dispassionate examination of history, socialization of nations, or the ideology of religions (or even the rejection of said religions) must take this into account - unless of course there is a predetermined agreement to mask the truth altogether.

That is the case here and no effort is made to hide it.

I feel the need to jump in on this as a history enthusiast, and of war history in particular.

The causes of the Crusades are multiple. Although you are correct the Pope didn't "wake up one day and decide to start a fight with Islam", neither did he have the authority to command any military action in the Middle East. Why? Because those land belonged to the Byzantine Empire, which was Orthodox and not under his sphere of influence. The division of the two major sect of Christianity was still in fresh memory, and the Empire would never have allowed European armies to enter its lands. But, as it was, soon after the battle of Manzikert in 1071 which saw the Seljuk Turks wrest the control of Asia Minor from the hands of the Empire, the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos requested the Pope Urban II for "mercenaries" or volunteers to defend his realm. What he got was a plunder force that fanatically pursued the goal of conquering Jerusalem. And in the end it ended in tears for the Empire, as the fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople itself.

Also, I must add a further reason that most likely affected the coming spirit of the so called "Holy War": the massacre of 3000 Christian pilgrims in the city by the Turks that ended the 400 years of tolerance policy of the Saracens Caliphs. The Turks had invaded the city in 1065. Until then the Saracens had ruled the city and allowed the Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem, first under Frankish and later Byzantine protection, and there were Christian communities as well as Jewish communities in the city, though the Christians had to obey strict rules and had their freedoms were quite severely restricted. That changed when the Turks took control, and more hostile stance to the two other Abrahamic religions were adapted, resulting in the incident of 3000 pilgrims being killed.
There were also the political ambitions of several European rulers, the Pope amongst them, to be considered. Not only was the Middle East a destination for thousands of pilgrims, it was also a commercially and economically hub of its day, as imports from Europe, Asia and Africa passing through there. Whoever was able to lay claim to them, could amass a considerable wealth, as many Crusaders eventually did.
The last reason however was religion itself, though that was as far as I’m concerned the reason for so many people of the lower classes to take up a cross and a sword or anything else heavy that could be considered as a weapon, as they were promised to be forgiven for all their sins in doing so. This encouraged thousands upon thousands of peasants to leave their lands and go to the “holy land� (if you ask me, they might as well dedicate it to Khorne, so much blood has been spilled over that stretch of land...), that concluded in what can only be the massacre of Jerusalem by these “warrior of faith�.

But in the end, I have to agree with this statement:

In the end, the violence, death, destruction, and continuing bad blood that last through to the present day would not have occurred without religion. It doesn't matter so much who "started it," Christians or Muslims. What matters is that Christians and Muslims eagerly participated in mass murder and destruction, mostly for the sake of religious beliefs, religious conquest, and religious supremacism. The Crusades exemplify the way in which religious devotion can become a violent act in a grand, cosmic drama of good vs. evil — an attitude which persists through today in the form of religious extremists and terrorists.

Also if one wishes to make claims that the land rightfully belongs to someone because “we were there before these guys�, how about the Jews, the Canaanites, Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians and Babylonians, hmm? And whoever else I might be forgetting.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades
http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/the-crusades.htm
http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/cause-of-crusades.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/crusades/a/crusades_3.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... ddle_Ages)

Largely a myth. See
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/695095/posts

At the very least they preserved the writing of Antiquity. You might be interested to read these:
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/20/014.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_trans ... o_the_West

Support or retract the 'millions' baloney

I gave a quick look, but I couldn’t find any good references to “millions�, other than estimates, while the official numbers seem laughably small. Well, those are the numbers of deaths; the numbers of ruined lives is still up for debate.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_In ... eath_tolls
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt ... statistics

ArcticEdit:

They have even attacked the atheist government of Russia to the north.

And don't let me even get started with what's wrong with that...

[East of Eden]

East of Eden wrote:

Support or retract the 'millions' baloney.

I am not a believer and I say what I think about Christianity, but neither am I a militant anti-Christian crusader. I stand by what I said in my previous post and certainly do not retract it, but neither do I wish to engage in an endless acrimonious exchange here.

I have already made several casual searches of the internet and easily found and made note of dozens of reliable confirmations of what I said. RELIABLE historical accounts, not opinions. Anyone else can easily do the same. I assure you these things are not a secret.

Meanwhile, I am a little tired and I will pass on your challenge for now. I may feel differently tomorrow. If you wish to count that as a win for yourself, you are welcome to do so. I am sure others will gladly step in and provide the support for my statements that you asked for.

John

I am not going to make a big deal of it, but I think you are very wrong on the 'millions'. 13 died in the Salem witch trials, and 20,000 in the entire history of the Spanish Inquisition, if that. Stalin at one point was killing 35,000 a week.

[East of Eden]

Isn't a bloody counter-offensive into your enemy's homeland "contrary to the teachings of Jesus, who harmed nobody"?

No more so than when God (Jesus) commanded the Israelites to defend themselves. Jesus never criticized Roman foreign policy, or soldiers for their profession. His commands were intended for us individually. Or do you think US foreign and domestic policy should be run according to the New Testament?

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

Isn't a bloody counter-offensive into your enemy's homeland "contrary to the teachings of Jesus, who harmed nobody"?

No more so than when God (Jesus) commanded the Israelites to defend themselves. Jesus never criticized Roman foreign policy, or soldiers for their profession. His commands were intended for us individually. Or do you think US foreign and domestic policy should be run according to the New Testament?

Wait a minute. If the OT God is Jesus... then how can you say that Jesus harmed no one? God (Jesus) harmed countless people. I seem to recall a story about God (Jesus) drowning 99% of people on the planet at one point. I seem to recall God (Jesus) commanding the Israelites to engage in a campaign of bloody genocide across the Levant.

You can't have it both ways, "Jesus harmed nobody" is a blatantly false statement.

I don't think there is any saying of Jesus that goes "my teachings apply only to the individual, when you get a group of individuals together to elect a government to represent them they are no longer obliged to follow me." It seems quite convenient to extrapolate your religion based on imagining why Jesus didn't say the things he didn't say. Jesus didn't say a lot of things. You'd think he would have been more explicit when there were these gaping exceptions to his teachings.

[East of Eden]

Isn't a bloody counter-offensive into your enemy's homeland "contrary to the teachings of Jesus, who harmed nobody"?

No more so than when God (Jesus) commanded the Israelites to defend themselves. Jesus never criticized Roman foreign policy, or soldiers for their profession. His commands were intended for us individually. Or do you think US foreign and domestic policy should be run according to the New Testament?

Wait a minute. If the OT God is Jesus... then how can you say that Jesus harmed no one? God (Jesus) harmed countless people. I seem to recall a story about God (Jesus) drowning 99% of people on the planet at one point. I seem to recall God (Jesus) commanding the Israelites to engage in a campaign of bloody genocide across the Levant.

What God did in the flood or told the theocracy of Israel to do has nothing to do with Christians today. Context is everything. Jesus told Peter to walk on water, does that apply to Christians today?

You can't have it both ways, "Jesus harmed nobody" is a blatantly false statement.

I don't think there is any saying of Jesus that goes "my teachings apply only to the individual, when you get a group of individuals together to elect a government to represent them they are no longer obliged to follow me."

So you're saying the US government should be run on the Bible?

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

What God did in the flood or told the theocracy of Israel to do has nothing to do with Christians today. Context is everything. Jesus told Peter to walk on water, does that apply to Christians today?

So let me get this straight. The crusades were not against the teachings of Jesus, who "harmed nobody" (even though he clearly harmed many many many people), because God (Jesus) told the theocracy of Israel to defend themselves. But what God (Jesus) told the theocracy of Israel has nothing to do with Christians today.

So you're saying the US government should be run on the Bible?

No, but I think Jesus would say that.

You didn't answer my question. If the OT God is Jesus, then how can you say that Jesus harmed no one?

[East of Eden]

What God did in the flood or told the theocracy of Israel to do has nothing to do with Christians today. Context is everything. Jesus told Peter to walk on water, does that apply to Christians today?

So let me get this straight. The crusades were not against the teachings of Jesus, who "harmed nobody" (even though he clearly harmed many many many people), because God (Jesus) told the theocracy of Israel to defend themselves. But what God (Jesus) told the theocracy of Israel has nothing to do with Christians today.

I have no problem with the Crusades, although like any war, you can find excesses. God's special concern with ancient Israel was to preserve them as the vehicle for the Messiah.

No, but I think Jesus would say that.

Jesus never told the Roman government to do anything.

You didn't answer my question. If the OT God is Jesus, then how can you say that Jesus harmed no one?

I meant Jesus of Nazareth, during His incarnation. Compare him to the violent 'prophet' of Islam.

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

I have no problem with the Crusades, although like any war, you can find excesses. God's special concern with ancient Israel was to preserve them as the vehicle for the Messiah.

Ok. This does not help clarify your position. I don't see how what God (Jesus) told the theocracy of Israel can both have nothing to do with Christians today and be used as justification for the actions of Christians today.

Jesus never told the Roman government to do anything.

Jesus never told a lot of people a lot of things. Like I said, awfully convenient to build religious beliefs around the imagined reasons for your prophet not saying certain things!

I meant Jesus of Nazareth, during His incarnation. Compare him to the violent 'prophet' of Islam.

I see. In the future, instead of saying "Jesus, who harmed nobody" perhaps you should say "Jesus, who ceased harming people for a brief period in the early first century" for the sake of clarity.

[JohnPaul]

East of Eden wrote:

I am not going to make a big deal of it, but I think you are very wrong on the 'millions'. 13 died in the Salem witch trials, and 20,000 in the entire history of the Spanish Inquisition, if that. Stalin at one point was killing 35,000 a week.

The Spanish Inquisition was only a minor copycat part of the Inquisition which continued for centuries throughout Europe, and even your figure of 20,000 does not include its larger extension into the Spanish colonies in Mexico and South America. Here is just one of many documented incidents from Mexico:

In 16th-century Mexico, sisters Isabel de Carvajal de Andrade and Leonor de Carvajal were strangled with iron collars and burned at the stake. Their crime -- practicing Judaism.
U.C. Berkeley's Bancroft Library recently acquired thousands of pages of documents -- until now thought lost or destroyed -- detailing testimony in the sisters' trial. The documents are part of an extensive collection of original rare records from the Mexican Inquisition, which lasted from 1570 until the end of the Spanish colonial period in the early 1800s.

Trial documents found in the recent U.C. Berkeley acquisition reveal that evidence against the sisters included their use of clean clothing and bed linens on Friday evenings.

The Carvajal family -- of which the two sisters were a part -- was one of the most famous of the crypto-Jewish families to be prosecuted in 16th-century colonial Mexico.

Around the same time, Carvajal's nephew and namesake, Luis de Carvajal "El Mozo" (the younger), was accused of relapsing into Judaism. Buckling under torture, he handed over to his inquisitors 116 names of other "Judaizers," including his mother and two of his sisters. He was ultimately burned at the stake alongside them.

Also, in my previous post where I cited the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Witch Hunts as examples of large-scale Christian atrocities, I did not think to include the centuries of Christian persecution of the Jews, because that is so well-known as to require no specific mention.

While searching for documentation for my claim of millions murdered by Christianity, I came across an extract from one of Hitler's speeches. I know Hitler is not often cited as a great Christian, but I believe his speech eloquently expresses the common Christian beliefs which have been responsible for the persecution and horrible murders of "millions" of Jew throughout history. I think it is interesting enough to post here:

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice.... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people.... When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those (the Jews) by whom to-day this poor people is plundered and exploited."

(Adolf Hitler, in his speech on 12 April 1922)

John

[East of Eden]

Ok. This does not help clarify your position. I don't see how what God (Jesus) told the theocracy of Israel can both have nothing to do with Christians today and be used as justification for the actions of Christians today.

First show me evidence the LRA is even using the Bible to justify their crimes.

Jesus never told a lot of people a lot of things. Like I said, awfully convenient to build religious beliefs around the imagined reasons for your prophet not saying certain things!

Don't know what you're saying here.

I see. In the future, instead of saying "Jesus, who harmed nobody" perhaps you should say "Jesus, who ceased harming people for a brief period in the early first century" for the sake of clarity.

What Jesus did in His creation is His business, if you can create life, you can take it. The fact is that you keep dodging, is that He never told his followers to do what the LRA is doing, unlike the 'prophet'.