I've witnessed several intellectuals, politicians, manipulating these historical events for a wide variety of reasons. Mostly for the purpose of demonizing Christianity, which would therefore not be much better than the Islamic faith, and demonization of the whole so called "imperialistic" Occident as well.
But more interistingly, I've also heard random people making claims that led me to believe that not many actually know what were the motives and reality of the crusades, and thus explaining the rethorical success of the demagogues mentionned above.
I can't prevent people from lying, so my post is there to enlighten the ones not too interested in history. I wouldn't discuss at length of the details of the Crusades, and whether or not they were victorious, I will just situate them in their historical perspective.
Crusaders
I). Intro
The Crusades were a series of religious expeditionary wars composed of European Christian (Catholic) fighters united under the banner of Christianity. They were called by the Pope and several European leaders with the goal of fighting Islamic expansionism, which, after trying to invade France through Spain earlier in History (battle of Tours 732), was currently conquering Christian Oriental lands (Byzantine) plus cutting off access to Jerusalem for Christian pilgrimages.
Ironically, the concept itself of "just war" used by Obama to explain the motives of some of the recent American wars, emerged from the Crusades. I say this because a lot of Obama supporters seem to be at the very least agnostic.
II). Historial perspective
First of, it is very important to keep in mind that the Crusades were reactionary expeditions. It was the Great Seljuq Empire (sunni Muslims) which initiated the conflict with the Christian Byzantines, and launched a series of invasions and wars which ended up being disastrous for the Byzantine Empire.
The Battle of Manzikert (1071) was the nail in the coffin and signed the military lose of the Byzantines.
The first crusade came 20 years after that.
Throughout all of them, unnecessary atrocities were commited on the Christian side. No one is denying that. Sacking of Jerusalem, large massacres, notably during the first crusade after the assieged refused to surrender and that the gates were breached.
First crusade victory, Jerusalem is taken
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
In the end, Constantinople finally fell to the Islamic Ottomans on 29 May 1453.
Fall of Constantinople
After that, the whole region got gradually more and more Islamized and is now 95 to 100% Muslims.
III). Conclusion
I'm under the impression that most people believe Orient has always been Islamic thus see the Crusades as an unjust war of conquest.
This wasn't meant to be a technical essay, but I hope a lot of you will now understand better the stupidity of this claim.
Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire (which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place) against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
Suffice to say Alexius wasn't very happy when a mob of unorganized barbarian religious lunatics led by greedy nobles arrived at his gates.
Religion was all an excuse and a manipulation of the common people, as usual. The jews and the orthodox Christians had as much to fear from the crusaders as the muslims did as they say jews, orthodox christians and muslims as basically the same. There is at least one battle in which arabs and crusaders fought other arabs and other crusaders. And of all massacres, the cannibalism at Ma'arra was the worst. It was basically crusaders eating whoever they could capture after sacking to achieve 'shock and awe'. The cannibalism wasn't the result of famine among the crusader soldiers. It was meant as intimidation.
Can't believe you want to argue this was a 'just war'. Didn't realize Breivik had internet in his cell block.
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote:Didn't realize Breivik had internet in his cell block.
This comment is completely unnecessary ...
Anyway i don't really know what you're trying to accomplish in posting this here i mean ... it's not that i dislike this kind of posts but you know, TL general, history lessons... it's not exactly what we ususally discuss i mean, what do you expect ?
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote: You should read 'The crusade through Arab eyes'.
Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
Suffice to say Alexius wasn't very happy when a mob of unorganized barbarian religious lunatics led by greedy nobles arrived at his gates.
Religion was all an excuse and a manipulation of the common people, as usual. The jews and the orthodox Christians had as much to fear from the crusaders as the muslims did as they say jews, orthodox christians and muslims as basically the same. There is at least one battle in which arabs and crusaders fought other arabs and other crusaders. And of all massacres, the cannibalism at Ma'arra was the worst. It was basically crusaders eating whoever they could capture after sacking to achieve 'shock and awe'. The cannibalism wasn't the result of famine among the crusader soldiers. It was meant as intimidation.
Can't believe you want to argue this was a 'just war'. Didn't realize Breivik had internet in his cell block.
What he means, I think, is that the Crusaders claimed this to be a "just war" and not that the OP necessarily thought this.
The whole idea of the Crusades being reactionary to Islamic extremism is a new perspective being advocated by modern/contemporary mega-Church apologists trying to rewrite history in favourable terms to Christians and has been popping up on many evangelical blogs/forums recently. It's like saying the colonisation of other countries by Christians was to prevent the people from those countries from killing each other when in reality the arrival of Christians murdered more natives than those countries had ever murdered their own throughout history.
The original reasoning for the Crusades were not that the Christians wanted to reclaim the Holy Land, it is because the Roman Catholic Church was slowly losing its power over Europe and needed an excuse to unite the Latin states to recoup some of said power. Read The Crusades by Thomas Asbridge. In fact, prior to the Crusades, Christians and Muslims were living peacefully in the Levant.
Seriously - SiroKO - were you inspired to make this post by a recent Christian blog post you came across or a recent Church sermon you heard, or is this knowledge you've had for quite some time and you've just decided to share it now. I wager that you've only just learnt about this heavily biased information about the Crusades recently. I know this because many of my fundamentalist/evangelical Christian friends have been posting similar status updates recently on Facebook. The truth is you know very little about the Crusades, heard a youth pastor give a half hour talk about it to try and prove that Christianity is good and has a clean slate compared to those evil Muslims and atheists, then decided to quickly start educating others about it.
Edit: It's quite common I know, I used to be a Christian and everytime I heard something new, like for example if a book like The Case for Creation by Lee Strobel came out saying that evolution is wrong, I'd quickly get on my pedastal and start preaching to people about how fantastic this book was without knowing shit about evolution or science. It's just pride. Prove that you actually know something about the Crusades, such as any history qualifications, but my bet is that you've only just recently found out about this from some one-sided Pentecostal sermon/book you attended/read recently.
Furthermore... FYI religious topics are banned on TL.
Edit: What I mean is, if an atheist started this topic giving the opposite perspective shedding Christians intentions for the Crusades in a negative light, it would very likely be closed.
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote: You should read 'The crusade through Arab eyes'.
Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire (which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place) against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
Suffice to say Alexius wasn't very happy when a mob of unorganized barbarian religious lunatics led by greedy nobles arrived at his gates.
Religion was all an excuse and a manipulation of the common people, as usual. The jews and the orthodox Christians had as much to fear from the crusaders as the muslims did as they say jews, orthodox christians and muslims as basically the same. There is at least one battle in which arabs and crusaders fought other arabs and other crusaders. And of all massacres, the cannibalism at Ma'arra was the worst. It was basically crusaders eating whoever they could capture after sacking to achieve 'shock and awe'. The cannibalism wasn't the result of famine among the crusader soldiers. It was meant as intimidation.
Can't believe you want to argue this was a 'just war'. Didn't realize Breivik had internet in his cell block.
Disregarding the cannibalism comment this is all very relevant. I'm not going to say the crusades were wrong, but I'm also not going to say they were right (or "just").
It is quite clear what he means. Intellectuals lied about the crusaders to make Christianity look bad. That are his words.
In the west the crusader for a long time were seen as brave noble knights fighting the infidels. This is why in ordinary language 'going on a crusade against' is acceptable language.. Then intellectuals, after going through the historical documents, offered a different view. To him this is a 'lie for politicial reasons'. Of course this happened a few decades ago. But the crusades happened a long time ago and for centuries theese events were still in the collective memory of the people in the west and people in the near east. But their accounts different vastly.
As someone who has studied medieval history, what I can tell you about this is that the painting of the "fall of Constantinople" is a not a depiction of the 1453 assault of the Ottomans but rather the 1204 attack of the Venetians, during their "Fourth Crusade". What that could tell you is that because they are both Christians it doesn't mean that Eastern Christians and Catholics were of the same bread. "Better the Sultan's turban than the Cardinal's Hat" : This is a quote by a Byzantine general during the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans. Crusades fighting for Catholic Christianity + no Catholic Christianity in the Levante = no moral justification in my book.
On May 12 2012 22:10 babybell wrote: As someone who has studied medieval history, what I can tell you about this is that the painting of the "fall of Constantinople" is a not a depiction of the 1453 assault of the Ottomans but rather the 1204 attack of the Venetians, during their "Fourth Crusade". What that could tell you is that because they are both Christians it doesn't mean that Eastern Christians and Catholics were of the same bread. "Better the Sultan's turban than the Cardinal's Hat" : This is a quote by a Byzantine general during the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans.
I heard about the last quote. Byzantines weren't in good terms with Europe, let's not forget that during the first Crusade, the crusaders sacked Constantinople.
It seems to me the OP is quite ignorant about these wars
I've always felt blaming religion for wars is pretty ridiculous, they're mostly motivated by human greed and politics. From what i can see Islam and Christianity are pretty indistinguishable from each other in their Hypocrisy and vileness.
I originally intended to write a lenghty post about the many reasons the OP is wrong, but I don't have the time nor motivation...he should just read more about the whole era
On May 12 2012 22:10 babybell wrote: As someone who has studied medieval history, what I can tell you about this is that the painting of the "fall of Constantinople" is a not a depiction of the 1453 assault of the Ottomans but rather the 1204 attack of the Venetians, during their "Fourth Crusade". What that could tell you is that because they are both Christians it doesn't mean that Eastern Christians and Catholics were of the same bread. "Better the Sultan's turban than the Cardinal's Hat" : This is a quote by a Byzantine general during the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans.
I heard about the last quote. Byzantines weren't in good terms with Europe, let's not forget that during the first Crusade, the crusaders sacked Constantinople.
It seems to me the OP is quite ignorant about these wars
I know about the Crusaders treason towards their Byzantine allies. They also took control of some lands rather than declaring them under Byzantine command.
Constantinople wasn't sacked by the crusaders on the first crusade. They weren't allowed inside the city or given food so they moved on to Antioch. But they were supposed to help Alexios since Alexios had asked for help. One of the leaders of the crusade was a mortal enemy of the Byzantine empire.
On May 12 2012 22:17 nttea wrote: I've always felt blaming religion for wars is pretty ridiculous, they're mostly motivated by human greed and politics. From what i can see Islam and Christianity are pretty indistinguishable from each other in their Hypocrisy and vileness.
That's not a fair statement. Take Islam for example. The Arab expansion was incredible and throughout the Arab sultanates during from the 7th century and for a long period of time that lasted until the 13th or 12th, depends on how you look at it, these areas of Northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East went from depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture. Religion helps to consolidate the masses and provide a clear set of goals. That isn't always bad for the people and good for some supposed "puppeteers".
On May 12 2012 22:22 Miyoshino wrote: Constantinople wasn't sacked by the crusaders on the first crusade. They weren't allowed inside the city or given food so they moved on to Antioch. But they were supposed to help Alexios since Alexios had asked for help. One of the leaders of the crusade was a mortal enemy of the Byzantine empire.
On May 12 2012 22:17 nttea wrote: I've always felt blaming religion for wars is pretty ridiculous, they're mostly motivated by human greed and politics. From what i can see Islam and Christianity are pretty indistinguishable from each other in their Hypocrisy and vileness.
That's not a fair statement. Take Islam for example. The Arab expansion was incredible and throughout the Arab sultanates during from the 7th century and for a long period of time that lasted until the 13th or 12th, depends on how you look at it, these areas of Northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East went from depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture. Religion helps to consolidate the masses and provide a clear set of goals. That isn't always bad for the people and good for some supposed "puppeteers".
"these areas of Northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East went from depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture"
lmao, are you for real? Seriously how brainwashed can people get?
On May 12 2012 22:17 nttea wrote: I've always felt blaming religion for wars is pretty ridiculous, they're mostly motivated by human greed and politics. From what i can see Islam and Christianity are pretty indistinguishable from each other in their Hypocrisy and vileness.
Yes, but with a note that Christianity in the West is playing an increasingly marginal role, while Islam is playing an increasingly larger role in many peoples lives. Blaming religion for wars is not that ridiculous by the way, wars are fought for many reasons, power, culture, and yes, partially religion. Any reason that can be used to show the difference in men, instead of the similarities is a good ally in war.
The concept of "Just War" indeed emerged from the Crusades (which the OP seem to narrow to the Middle East, ignoring the conquest of Polabian Slavs, Preussia and the wars against Lithuania) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Crusades
It was in fact proposed AGAINST the former Crusaders (Teutonic Knights) fighting pagan tribes in Preussia and Latvia. It basically stated - Everyone has the right to defend themselves, even if they are pagans fighting christian knights.
The Muslim world was flat out winning. It was a golden age for Islam. They were responsible for huge advancements in astronomy, they invented trigonometry, they had hospitals in every city. Meanwhile Christian nations were just kicking the shit out of each other in their feudalistic in-fighting. The Crusades consolidated their power and directed it before they just languished and their religion got overtaken. Then Genghis Khan finished the job.
On May 12 2012 22:17 nttea wrote: I've always felt blaming religion for wars is pretty ridiculous, they're mostly motivated by human greed and politics. From what i can see Islam and Christianity are pretty indistinguishable from each other in their Hypocrisy and vileness.
That's not a fair statement. Take Islam for example. The Arab expansion was incredible and throughout the Arab sultanates during from the 7th century and for a long period of time that lasted until the 13th or 12th, depends on how you look at it, these areas of Northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East went from depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture. Religion helps to consolidate the masses and provide a clear set of goals. That isn't always bad for the people and good for some supposed "puppeteers".
"these areas of Northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East went from depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture"
lmao, are you for real? Seriously how brainwashed can people get?
They may not have been depressed and all that unorganised, but you can't argue against the Muslim world being the centre of culture in that period of time.
"these areas of Northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East went from depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture"
lmao, are you for real? Seriously how brainwashed can people get?
This:
On May 12 2012 22:32 floor exercise wrote: The Muslim world was flat out winning. It was a golden age for Islam. They were responsible for huge advancements in astronomy, they invented trigonometry, they had hospitals in every city. Meanwhile Christian nations were just kicking the shit out of each other in their feudalistic in-fighting. The Crusades consolidated their power and directed it before they just languished and their religion got overtaken. Then Genghis Khan finished the job.
Just because Western European culture has been uncontested for half a millenium and you now associate arab faces with cultural backwardness it wasn't always this way. There is no brainwashing here. If the Iberian peninsula was split into civilized and uncivilized, the Moors would be the civilized ones. For many years, the library of Cordoba alone had more Greek philosophical texts than all of Western Europe combined.
On May 12 2012 22:10 Miyoshino wrote: It is quite clear what he means. Intellectuals lied about the crusaders to make Christianity look bad. That are his words.
In the west the crusader for a long time were seen as brave noble knights fighting the infidels. This is why in ordinary language 'going on a crusade against' is acceptable language.. Then intellectuals, after going through the historical documents, offered a different view. To him this is a 'lie for politicial reasons'. Of course this happened a few decades ago. But the crusades happened a long time ago and for centuries theese events were still in the collective memory of the people in the west and people in the near east. But their accounts different vastly.
Great resume, although I would disagree they started to lie after "going through the historical documents".
The refusal of any historical perspective when talking about the Christian Crusades is only a small part of the vast anti-national and self-hating movement emerging after WW2 in Occident.
Just for pointing out the obvious, Turks are not Arabs. We were just affected by some part of Arab culture and shared the religion after some time. Our sources and baseline culture had nothing to do with original Arabs.
On May 12 2012 22:17 nttea wrote: I've always felt blaming religion for wars is pretty ridiculous, they're mostly motivated by human greed and politics. From what i can see Islam and Christianity are pretty indistinguishable from each other in their Hypocrisy and vileness.
That's not a fair statement. Take Islam for example. The Arab expansion was incredible and throughout the Arab sultanates during from the 7th century and for a long period of time that lasted until the 13th or 12th, depends on how you look at it, these areas of Northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East went from depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture. Religion helps to consolidate the masses and provide a clear set of goals. That isn't always bad for the people and good for some supposed "puppeteers".
"these areas of Northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East went from depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture"
lmao, are you for real? Seriously how brainwashed can people get?
ahm well if you don't believe that then you might've been the brainwashed one, since all historical records would agree with that also I don't see why spanish would tolerate moors for so long if they were technologically behind...
This is a little forgotten part of the history of the crusades, I read about it in a book on the history of the knights templar, blew my mind that it actually happened. People back in the day were really just not very enlightened... (stupid)
From what I've read, the high ups of the catholic church and the government conspired to enrich themselves by telling the congregants that they would get glory from god if they invaded and plundered other countries.
You're being biased towards only the first Crusade in your post. There were as many as thirteen crusades, and the majority were not aimed at reclaiming the Holy Land. I also wouldn't really draw a line between the Battle of Tours (a minor raid at best into what became France - the Muslim Caliphate never really made significant attempts to claim Europe, and no Muslim power did until the rise of the Ottomans) and the Crusades - your're talking about a gap of four centuries there. Bit of a long response time.
Look at the later Crusades - hell, Constantinople, the one you talk about falling in the mid-15th century? Only fell, was only weak enough, because the Fourth Crusade conquered it. That's a Christian power conquering a Christian power, right there. You do mention that people feared the Crusades - damn right. Nearly every one in the beginning was kicked off with pogroms against the Jews in Europe. Then you have the later Crusades, such as the Albigensian or the Teutonic - one in France, against the heretic Cathars (but still nominally Christian) and the other in what became Prussia against Slavic pagans (where is the reactionary element here...?).
They began as an ill-formed, hazy movement to reclaim the Holy Land and became appropriated by the Popes to largely further their power politically, before becoming a political tool of smaller kings and nobles who wanted a smear of justification for their own actions. It's worth thinking about this notion of 'Just War', which was not limited to crusading, was also applied to William's conquest of England - he received papal backing to claim what he said was rightfully his. Don't make the mistake of thinking this was the godly Christians fighting back the muslim Caliphate hordes, not least because the Caliphate had fractured and devolved into infighting long before the Crusades were even thought of. Keep in mind that Urban II never intended for there to be a Crusade - how could he, when it had never happened before? It was simply a group of people who all basically had the same idea, and Urban didn't realise what he had allowed - namely the repudiation of all sins simply by travelling to the Holy Land and allowing them to indulge in whatever actions they wished. These guys were not travelling out of altruistic intentions, throughout the sources we get this notion that they knew fully well that their sins would be forgiven. In later years, when Crusading was a more organised affair, people would regularly go to the holy Land to have their sins wiped clean. This was the primary aim - simply by travelling on Crusade, rather like a pilgrimage, sins would be forgiven no matter what. It's worth considering that the notion that you could enter heaven free of sins for warmongering was a Christian notion - the idea of jihad in it's modern form arguably came from this.
Definitely was a war of aggression but then again...the conquest of richard the lionheart is a pretty cool tale. I always preferred western knights to shitty little arab knights riding around on ponies with bows and their silk cloth. Nothing cooler than a barder warhorse and a suit of armour + a broadsword. When I went to Turkey I talked to some guys about this and they were like 'haha stupid western armour? It looks so stupid and they are so clunky and useless, much better a brave knight of suleiman's horde with his majestic robes and well made sword, and rapid horse.
Funny how perspectives on these things come almost entirely from your background.
On May 12 2012 22:32 floor exercise wrote: The Muslim world was flat out winning. It was a golden age for Islam. They were responsible for huge advancements in astronomy, they invented trigonometry, they had hospitals in every city. Meanwhile Christian nations were just kicking the shit out of each other in their feudalistic in-fighting. The Crusades consolidated their power and directed it before they just languished and their religion got overtaken. Then Genghis Khan finished the job.
Just because Western European culture has been uncontested for half a millenium and you now associate arab faces with cultural backwardness it wasn't always this way. There is no brainwashing here. If the Iberian peninsula was split into civilized and uncivilized, the Moors would be the civilized ones. For many years, the library of Cordoba alone had more Greek philosophical texts than all of Western Europe combined.
True true. The Muslim world is basically the only reason we have a large chuck of the ancient Greek texts that we prize so highly, many of which only survived in Arabic for centuries. Windmills? Yeah, we got those from conquering Al-Andalus (otherwise known as Spain). I've seen claims that the Renaissance was basically a direct result of the Reconquista, namely the Arab libraries that became property of the Catholic Spanish throne were translated and disseminated throughout Europe leading to a rediscovery of the Ancient Greek philosophies and mathematics.
On May 13 2012 00:20 sc4k wrote: Definitely was a war of aggression but then again...the conquest of richard the lionheart is a pretty cool tale. I always preferred western knights to shitty little arab knights riding around on ponies with bows and their silk cloth. Nothing cooler than a barder warhorse and a suit of armour + a broadsword. When I went to Turkey I talked to some guys about this and they were like 'haha stupid western armour? It looks so stupid and they are so clunky and useless, much better a brave knight of suleiman's horde with his majestic robes and well made sword, and rapid horse.
Funny how perspectives on these things come almost entirely from your background.
:D You know how many knights dumped their armour when they realised how hot it was in the Levant? Hell, Barbarossa died because he went for a swim in his armour. And Lionheart's tale was basically him pissing off the nobles of Europe while he went to the Middle East, conquering Cyprus on the way (another Christian power...) and having to hide who he was on the way back for fear of being discovered. It's a toss-up who was a worse king of England, him or John
Useless post and thread, does not belong in the "General" section but in blogs at best. The OP is a poorly understood and strongly biased restranscription of a Wikipedia article.
A short list of Siroko's shortcomings :
What he says can only be applied mostly to the first crusade,
Brushes off the fourth crusade as unimportant, although it essentially destroyed the Byzantine Empire and thus allowed a later Ottoman conquest,
Considers Europe as a unified continent under the christian banner even though any glimpse at any history book suggests otherwise,
Compares short muslim incursions in France with the establishment of catholic kingdoms in today's Israël,
Ignores the political dimension of any of these conflicts, where religion sometimes didn't even matter (an example being the alliance of France and Syria against Egypt).
So when Siroko says that :
They were called by the Pope and several European leaders with the goal of fighting Islamic expansionism
It is false.
was currently conquering Christian Oriental lands (Byzantine)
This is false too (crusaders themselves brought the Byzantine Empire to its knees).
this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
Also wrong, as said earlier crusades were directed towards christians too.
I find this post very upsetting. I feel as if a child was trying to teach me German ontology.
On May 12 2012 22:32 floor exercise wrote: The Muslim world was flat out winning. It was a golden age for Islam. They were responsible for huge advancements in astronomy, they invented trigonometry, they had hospitals in every city. Meanwhile Christian nations were just kicking the shit out of each other in their feudalistic in-fighting. The Crusades consolidated their power and directed it before they just languished and their religion got overtaken. Then Genghis Khan finished the job.
Just because Western European culture has been uncontested for half a millenium and you now associate arab faces with cultural backwardness it wasn't always this way. There is no brainwashing here. If the Iberian peninsula was split into civilized and uncivilized, the Moors would be the civilized ones. For many years, the library of Cordoba alone had more Greek philosophical texts than all of Western Europe combined.
You say there is no brainwashing, however there are only two possible explanations for saying stuff like that. Either a) you are brainwashed or b) you are making ignorant comments.
Too bad for you armchair historians i am actualy Portuguese as in from Portugal, the country that was formed while Christians were retaking the Iberian peninsula and all early history is around figthing moors off the peninsula. I cringe everytime i see stupid shit being posted about the crusades, its pretty much shitting on the past of all europeans just for the sake of passing anti-religion or globalization propaganda.
Why no one talks about the pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population? Why no one talks about the deportation of thousands of peninsular women? One muslim general alone took around 300,000 peninsular woman (supposedly virgins, so most likely underage girls) with him to Damascus. Another thing this general took was one of the biggest peninsular treasures, a jewelled table belonging to King Solomon, wich takes us to the other point wich is the retarded glorification of claims of Muslim cultural and scientific contributions, like saying that the library of Cordoba alone had more Greek philosophical texts than all of Western Europe combined. Well shit, if they pillaged then hauled half of the treasures from europe no wonder they had a great library.
Here is a recap of the crusades. Muslims were shitting all over europe, Christians got pissed, gathered up took europe back then launched a counter-atack. Did crusaders killed people? Sure, they were knights and it was the medieval times. Its not like its much better nowadays with people pissing on mutilated corpses and taking pictures to put on facebook, atleast back then people fought for something (even if some exploited the whole situation), not like now were you have rambo wannabe sheeple doing atrocities and regular sheeple back at home eating the grass that has been layed down for them.
On May 13 2012 00:20 sc4k wrote: Definitely was a war of aggression but then again...the conquest of richard the lionheart is a pretty cool tale. I always preferred western knights to shitty little arab knights riding around on ponies with bows and their silk cloth. Nothing cooler than a barder warhorse and a suit of armour + a broadsword. When I went to Turkey I talked to some guys about this and they were like 'haha stupid western armour? It looks so stupid and they are so clunky and useless, much better a brave knight of suleiman's horde with his majestic robes and well made sword, and rapid horse.
Funny how perspectives on these things come almost entirely from your background.
:D You know how many knights dumped their armour when they realised how hot it was in the Levant? Hell, Barbarossa died because he went for a swim in his armour. And Lionheart's tale was basically him pissing off the nobles of Europe while he went to the Middle East, conquering Cyprus on the way (another Christian power...) and having to hide who he was on the way back for fear of being discovered. It's a toss-up who was a worse king of England, him or John
Oh come on! All he did was piss of the French King, the Holy Roman Emperor, the Byzantine Emperor, most of the most powerful families in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, his own army when he declined to march on Jerusalem and nearly start a civil war when he started meddling in the internal politics of the Holy Land. That's not that bad is it?
Also the only aspect of crusading and the crusades that can't explicitly be considered an offensive conflict was in Spain, but even then, the myths surrounding the Reconquista have done so much to complicate dividing fact from legend that it's incredibly difficult to figure out what the hell actually happened. Also, it's actually insulting to talk about wanting to tell the "truth" about the Crusades and then blindly conflate the Byzantine Empire with Western Christianity. The Byzantines were very different culturally, politically and religiously from the "West" their society was influenced heavily by the Greek tradition (Greek, not Latin was the official language of the Court, unlike much of the rest of medieval Europe), there were significant differences from a religious point of view as well, including the Patriarch of Constantinople not recognizing the authority of the Pope as the head of Christianity (A minor difference of course...). In fact, that was one of the conditions set by Urban II in exchange for aid, that the Byzantines would accept the suzerainty of the Pope over Byzantium.
I defy you to explain how the Muslim world presented a clear and present danger to Western Europe in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. After the collapse of Abbasid power, the Muslim world was riven with just as many divided principalities and quarreling states as Europe was. The idea of the all-conquering Muslim united in a desire to endlessly expand the borders of Islam in that period is a complete and total myth.
On May 13 2012 00:20 sc4k wrote: Definitely was a war of aggression but then again...the conquest of richard the lionheart is a pretty cool tale. I always preferred western knights to shitty little arab knights riding around on ponies with bows and their silk cloth. Nothing cooler than a barder warhorse and a suit of armour + a broadsword. When I went to Turkey I talked to some guys about this and they were like 'haha stupid western armour? It looks so stupid and they are so clunky and useless, much better a brave knight of suleiman's horde with his majestic robes and well made sword, and rapid horse.
Funny how perspectives on these things come almost entirely from your background.
It's a toss-up who was a worse king of England, him or John
Haha actually it's arguable that John was a lot better for England since, by being such a colossal dickhead magna carta happened!
On May 13 2012 00:50 FaiL_SaFe wrote: I defy you to explain how the Muslim world presented a clear and present danger to Western Europe in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. After the collapse of Abbasid power, the Muslim world was riven with just as many divided principalities and quarreling states as Europe was. The idea of the all-conquering Muslim united in a desire to endlessly expand the borders of Islam in that period is a complete and total myth.
There's a clear logical fallacy in the claim that because they are and were different factions among Islam and Islamic leaders, and conflicts between them, no unity could be found. The notion of Ummah and Jihad was exeptionaly strong in the early days of Islam and were the stated motives beyond a lot of the early Islamic invasions.
On May 13 2012 00:20 sc4k wrote: Definitely was a war of aggression but then again...the conquest of richard the lionheart is a pretty cool tale. I always preferred western knights to shitty little arab knights riding around on ponies with bows and their silk cloth. Nothing cooler than a barder warhorse and a suit of armour + a broadsword. When I went to Turkey I talked to some guys about this and they were like 'haha stupid western armour? It looks so stupid and they are so clunky and useless, much better a brave knight of suleiman's horde with his majestic robes and well made sword, and rapid horse.
Funny how perspectives on these things come almost entirely from your background.
Your average crusader (much like your average medieval soldier really, christian or muslim) looked much more like a hobo. Dirty clothes from walking for months, stained with the blood of innocent villagers they had slaughtered to gather ressources (large armies were a true plague, regions like Lorraine in the 17th were devastated for centuries after armed men had killed nearly half of the population). The armor, too hot and heavy for such a trip, was often tossed away. And don't get me started on their teeth...
On May 12 2012 23:50 NebuLoSa wrote: some people in this thread should look up a guy named breivik....shit...
So i was already warned, so i cant fully express my opinion.
Lets just say that its pathetic that you have to resort to ad hominem atacks, "you dont agree with me? you are racist." I guess nowadays its more hip to mention breivik instead.
Also i noticed you are from sweden, so its only natural this type of a comment by your part, seeing that sweden is the european capital of propaganda.
Now dont get me wrong, dont come calling me racist or whatever, i dont give 2 shits if europe gets literally flooded by a billion immigrants.
The fact that the OP only pops in for a few occasional two-liners without addressing any of the significant counter-arguments made against his initial points goes to show my initial suspicions were true - he knows fuck all about the subject, probably heard one biased sermon in a Church about it, and tried to pass off as an expert on it thinking he would be doing something good for the promotion of Christianity.
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Why no one talks about the pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population? Why no one talks about the deportation of thousands of peninsular women? One muslim general alone took around 300,000 peninsular woman (supposedly virgins, so most likely underage girls) with him to Damascus.
We do, because we have a genuine interest in history. We're not trying to prove that muslims are good or evil. Personally I don't give a damn, I'm simply interested in our past. I don't see where you took the idea that no one talks about the "pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population", atlhough it is true that the christian population was originally treated better by the conquerors of Spain, who were far more advanced than the indigenous population.
The fact that you come from Portugal yourself is meaningless, by the way. Most of the population is unaware of their own history.
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Another thing this general took was one of the biggest peninsular treasures, a jewelled table belonging to King Solomon, wich takes us to the other point wich is the retarded glorification of claims of Muslim cultural and scientific contributions, like saying that the library of Cordoba alone had more Greek philosophical texts than all of Western Europe combined. Well shit, if they pillaged then hauled half of the treasures from europe no wonder they had a great library.
Pillage was fairly common back then. How do you think crusaders survived the long walk through Europe? How many cities do you think they burned to the ground? To put it simply, the only difference was that crusaders burnt everything when muslims were civilized enough to preserve valuable texts and knowledge. From your post I also don't expect you to know anything about antiquity, but many texts in the possession of sultans had simply been kept ever since the fall of the Roman empire.
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Here is a recap of the crusades. Muslims were shitting all over europe, Christians got pissed, gathered up took europe back then launched a counter-atack.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Read my first post and the post above it. You have obviously no idea of what you're talking about, and should at least admit it.
On May 13 2012 00:50 FaiL_SaFe wrote: I defy you to explain how the Muslim world presented a clear and present danger to Western Europe in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. After the collapse of Abbasid power, the Muslim world was riven with just as many divided principalities and quarreling states as Europe was. The idea of the all-conquering Muslim united in a desire to endlessly expand the borders of Islam in that period is a complete and total myth.
There's a clear logical fallacy in the claim that because they are and were different factions among Islam and Islamic leaders, and conflicts between them, no unity could be found. The notion of Ummah and Jihad was exeptionaly strong in the early days of Islam and were the stated motives beyond a lot of the early Islamic invasions.
And there's a clear straw-man in your response, rendering the entire thing worthless. He didn't say no unity existed. He said there was just as much incoherence among the Islamic states as there was among the European states.
OK guys. You got me seriously curious about the deep history and intentions behind all the crusades...so unless you guys want to keep fighting can someone write a big nice one for me or direct me somewhere :D?
Armor isn't cheap, the average guy (and the majority of the people of the first crusade) did not have the heavy set armor. The richer nobles on the later crusades did have armor, as they had the funds to afford it. Not sure how useful heavy armor is in the heat of that region though, hell I got cooked runnin around in a t-shirt at 105oF
After the crumbling of the Western Roman Empire (~400), the 2 christians world were completely separated on a political level. To even claim that the crusades were to defend eastern christians is ludicrous at best. There were ideological wars of reactive aggression against heathens, and not only muslims ones.
Also the simple idea of having an united 'muslim" empire is false. Many dynasties were in place at that time and internal struggle happened between muslims just like it happened between the early middle ages kingdoms in catholic europa. The crusades didn't happen because Francs had to defend their kingdoms against heathens invasion based on religious reasons. It wasn't a honest reaction of defense because the land of Christianity weren't threaten at that time as the land possession in north Africa and Palestine were lost during the early years of Islam (Patriarchal and Umayyad Caliphate) several centuries before the crusades.
Crusades were a political conflict transformed into a religious one. In fact, we should revise the complete history of crusades and stop calling pilgrimages crusades on the basis that knights were sent with pilgrims to defend them against seljuk, byzantines (yes them too) and various thiefs. Arrived in the Holy Land, these knights were somewhat eager to do something with themselves and started to create domains and segregate their countries in order to favor christians, whereas the previous caliphates were much more peaceful (except the seljuk of course).
On May 12 2012 22:17 nttea wrote: I've always felt blaming religion for wars is pretty ridiculous, they're mostly motivated by human greed and politics. From what i can see Islam and Christianity are pretty indistinguishable from each other in their Hypocrisy and vileness.
That's not a fair statement. Take Islam for example. The Arab expansion was incredible and throughout the Arab sultanates during from the 7th century and for a long period of time that lasted until the 13th or 12th, depends on how you look at it, these areas of Northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East went from depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture. Religion helps to consolidate the masses and provide a clear set of goals. That isn't always bad for the people and good for some supposed "puppeteers".
Well those areas going from "depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture" could just as well be attributed to cultural and political unification, which could have been any entity and didn't have to be Islam (much like what happened when alexander conquered the middle east) Still doesn't mean the religion isn't full of shit. edit: but errr... my main point was Christianity and Islam are very similar religions good or bad.
On May 12 2012 22:17 nttea wrote: I've always felt blaming religion for wars is pretty ridiculous, they're mostly motivated by human greed and politics. From what i can see Islam and Christianity are pretty indistinguishable from each other in their Hypocrisy and vileness.
That's not a fair statement. Take Islam for example. The Arab expansion was incredible and throughout the Arab sultanates during from the 7th century and for a long period of time that lasted until the 13th or 12th, depends on how you look at it, these areas of Northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East went from depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture. Religion helps to consolidate the masses and provide a clear set of goals. That isn't always bad for the people and good for some supposed "puppeteers".
Well those areas going from "depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture" could just as well be attributed to cultural and political unification, which could have been any entity and didn't have to be Islam (much like what happened when alexander conquered the middle east) Still doesn't mean the religion isn't full of shit. edit: but errr... my main point was Christianity and Islam are very similar religions good or bad.
Their followers might be since they're humans affected by the same passions, but the religions, by religion I mean the verses of their Holy Books, are very different.
On May 13 2012 00:20 sc4k wrote: Definitely was a war of aggression but then again...the conquest of richard the lionheart is a pretty cool tale. I always preferred western knights to shitty little arab knights riding around on ponies with bows and their silk cloth. Nothing cooler than a barder warhorse and a suit of armour + a broadsword. When I went to Turkey I talked to some guys about this and they were like 'haha stupid western armour? It looks so stupid and they are so clunky and useless, much better a brave knight of suleiman's horde with his majestic robes and well made sword, and rapid horse.
Funny how perspectives on these things come almost entirely from your background.
:D You know how many knights dumped their armour when they realised how hot it was in the Levant? Hell, Barbarossa died because he went for a swim in his armour. And Lionheart's tale was basically him pissing off the nobles of Europe while he went to the Middle East, conquering Cyprus on the way (another Christian power...) and having to hide who he was on the way back for fear of being discovered. It's a toss-up who was a worse king of England, him or John
I defy you to explain how the Muslim world presented a clear and present danger to Western Europe in the late 11th and early 12th centuries. After the collapse of Abbasid power, the Muslim world was riven with just as many divided principalities and quarreling states as Europe was. The idea of the all-conquering Muslim united in a desire to endlessly expand the borders of Islam in that period is a complete and total myth.
maybe seljuks can be given as a reason. being faily arabic and muslimic influenced. or constant imigration of turkmen horde can be shown as a growing military population in anatolia. than again that population is not muslim though guess we can say their alliagence and han is.
well of course we can always try to defend the crusade "institution" with very limited pool of examples but yeah..
On May 13 2012 01:21 Kukaracha wrote: We do, because we have a genuine interest in history. We're not trying to prove that muslims are good or evil. Personally I don't give a damn, I'm simply interested in our past. I don't see where you took the idea that no one talks about the "pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population", atlhough it is true that the christian population was originally treated better by the conquerors of Spain, who were far more advanced than the indigenous population.
nah, the fact is that you very rarely will hear about the muslim aggression. you will almost always exclusively hear about the christian aggression and the christian atrocities (don't believe me? ask ten random people on the street about the Crusades, who was at fault, etc.) even in this thread that is evident. its understandable given the "blame the victor" mentality that has often risen up in our judgements of the past, but it is also extremely dishonest. as are the kind of statements like:
"were far more advanced than the indigenous population"
which simplifies a very complex issue far beyond what is strictly advisable.
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote: You should read 'The crusade through Arab eyes'.
Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire (which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place) against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
Suffice to say Alexius wasn't very happy when a mob of unorganized barbarian religious lunatics led by greedy nobles arrived at his gates.
Religion was all an excuse and a manipulation of the common people, as usual. The jews and the orthodox Christians had as much to fear from the crusaders as the muslims did as they say jews, orthodox christians and muslims as basically the same. There is at least one battle in which arabs and crusaders fought other arabs and other crusaders. And of all massacres, the cannibalism at Ma'arra was the worst. It was basically crusaders eating whoever they could capture after sacking to achieve 'shock and awe'. The cannibalism wasn't the result of famine among the crusader soldiers. It was meant as intimidation.
Can't believe you want to argue this was a 'just war'. Didn't realize Breivik had internet in his cell block.
User was temp banned for this post.
WHAT?????????
not only is that incredibly wrong is also very stupid...
The bizantine empire started in 320s after christ, when the roman empire fell and was divided in oriental empire (bizantium) and western empire. Since islam only apeared in 622 how can byzantium be an agressor against Islam?
Get you fact rights my friend because you don't know shit..
On May 13 2012 01:21 Kukaracha wrote: We do, because we have a genuine interest in history. We're not trying to prove that muslims are good or evil. Personally I don't give a damn, I'm simply interested in our past. I don't see where you took the idea that no one talks about the "pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population", atlhough it is true that the christian population was originally treated better by the conquerors of Spain, who were far more advanced than the indigenous population.
nah, the fact is that you very rarely will hear about the muslim aggression. you will almost always exclusively hear about the christian aggression and the christian atrocities. even in this thread that is evident. its understandable given the "blame the victor" mentality that has often risen up in our judgements of the past, but it is also extremely dishonest. as are the kind of statements like:
"were far more advanced than the indigenous population"
which simplifies a very complex issue far beyond what is strictly advisable.
True, you should therefore avoid questioning something concluded by historians.
It's somewhat ironic that you come up with this random "fact" that people always ramble about crusaders and not about djihadists and then speak about carefully looking at a complex problem.
However, even if this is true, how is this not logical for French people to learn about crusades, for example, as it's part of our ancesters' history? Muslims only set foot in France once, and we do learn this in schools. Aside from that, why should we learn Spanish and Egyptian history (although we do learn about the conquest of Spain, you know).
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote: You should read 'The crusade through Arab eyes'.
Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire (which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place) against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
Suffice to say Alexius wasn't very happy when a mob of unorganized barbarian religious lunatics led by greedy nobles arrived at his gates.
Religion was all an excuse and a manipulation of the common people, as usual. The jews and the orthodox Christians had as much to fear from the crusaders as the muslims did as they say jews, orthodox christians and muslims as basically the same. There is at least one battle in which arabs and crusaders fought other arabs and other crusaders. And of all massacres, the cannibalism at Ma'arra was the worst. It was basically crusaders eating whoever they could capture after sacking to achieve 'shock and awe'. The cannibalism wasn't the result of famine among the crusader soldiers. It was meant as intimidation.
Can't believe you want to argue this was a 'just war'. Didn't realize Breivik had internet in his cell block.
User was temp banned for this post.
WHAT?????????
not only is that incredibly wrong is also very stupid...
The bizantine empire started in 320s after christ, when the roman empire fell and was divided in oriental empire (bizantium) and western empire. Since islam only apeared in 622 how can byzantium be an agressor against Islam?
Get you fact rights my friend because you don't know shit..
And how did the region around Greece fall under the Roman flag, mh? Through peaceful agreements? He wrote : "which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place", how can you prove this wrong? Or are some conquest (from Rome) just and others (from the Ottomans) unjust?
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote: You should read 'The crusade through Arab eyes'.
Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire (which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place) against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
Suffice to say Alexius wasn't very happy when a mob of unorganized barbarian religious lunatics led by greedy nobles arrived at his gates.
Religion was all an excuse and a manipulation of the common people, as usual. The jews and the orthodox Christians had as much to fear from the crusaders as the muslims did as they say jews, orthodox christians and muslims as basically the same. There is at least one battle in which arabs and crusaders fought other arabs and other crusaders. And of all massacres, the cannibalism at Ma'arra was the worst. It was basically crusaders eating whoever they could capture after sacking to achieve 'shock and awe'. The cannibalism wasn't the result of famine among the crusader soldiers. It was meant as intimidation.
Can't believe you want to argue this was a 'just war'. Didn't realize Breivik had internet in his cell block.
User was temp banned for this post.
WHAT?????????
not only is that incredibly wrong is also very stupid...
The bizantine empire started in 320s after christ, when the roman empire fell and was divided in oriental empire (bizantium) and western empire. Since islam only apeared in 622 how can byzantium be an agressor against Islam?
Get you fact rights my friend because you don't know shit..
He said against the arabs, not again Islam, it is not the same thing. Arabs existed way before Islam.
Maybe you should be less offensive and certain about yourself ? Next time please just read calmly.
My view on this is very simple, these crusades were for various reasons:
->religious fervor from both sides (clearly the less important because the leaders that inflated the poor masses did it not for god but to aquire more power and money) ->Fear - Iberia was starting to be free from the muslim ocupation and strong countrys formed (Spain and Portugal) and Europe after the invasion was always afraid of a bigger one, don't forget Sicilia was occupied and most of the mediterranian were constantly atacked by muslim pirates (This goes out both ways i'm sure, Christian sailors must have done the same thing) ->money(the most important ALWAYS) since in those times those lands were rich and prosperous and the only way to get silk, spicies and other luxury items from the far east, india and china (that made the muslims rich and after the crusades the otomans very rich, until the portuguese fucked them up and went to india directly by boat, cutting them off and also the Venezians for instance "died" because of this) ->power(what else?) - The ruler of Jerusalem (the holliest city for jews, christians and muslims) would be a important person and plus those lands were important and rich(Anatolia of course and Istanbul being the bigger prize after Jerusalem, Acre and Antioch)
These wars are a part of our past and we have to accept for what they were.. war is never pretty and often times there aren't winners.. only losers!
For instance Portugal was occupied for muslim for around 300 years but there wasn't any "Portugal or Spain" before the ocupation only week and dirty Sueve and Visigothic kingdoms.. eventually the muslim ocupation gave us a common enemy and two strong countrys were formed that live on until today.. We learned alot from the muslim and still have them in our culture even if Portugal is like 95% catholic.
For instance all the portuguese words that start with "al.." are from the muslims like "Alentejo", "Algarve", "Aljezur"! They were much more advanced then the kings of old and taught us many things !
I just people would stop putting religion in front of a person or a life... is it a god wish?
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Why no one talks about the pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population? Why no one talks about the deportation of thousands of peninsular women? One muslim general alone took around 300,000 peninsular woman (supposedly virgins, so most likely underage girls) with him to Damascus.
We do, because we have a genuine interest in history. We're not trying to prove that muslims are good or evil. Personally I don't give a damn, I'm simply interested in our past. I don't see where you took the idea that no one talks about the "pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population", atlhough it is true that the christian population was originally treated better by the conquerors of Spain, who were far more advanced than the indigenous population.
The fact that you come from Portugal yourself is meaningless, by the way. Most of the population is unaware of their own history.
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Another thing this general took was one of the biggest peninsular treasures, a jewelled table belonging to King Solomon, wich takes us to the other point wich is the retarded glorification of claims of Muslim cultural and scientific contributions, like saying that the library of Cordoba alone had more Greek philosophical texts than all of Western Europe combined. Well shit, if they pillaged then hauled half of the treasures from europe no wonder they had a great library.
Pillage was fairly common back then. How do you think crusaders survived the long walk through Europe? How many cities do you think they burned to the ground? To put it simply, the only difference was that crusaders burnt everything when muslims were civilized enough to preserve valuable texts and knowledge. From your post I also don't expect you to know anything about antiquity, but many texts in the possession of sultans had simply been kept ever since the fall of the Roman empire.
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Here is a recap of the crusades. Muslims were shitting all over europe, Christians got pissed, gathered up took europe back then launched a counter-atack.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Read my first post and the post above it. You have obviously no idea of what you're talking about, and should at least admit it.
Despite you claiming that you only seek history accuracy, pretty much the sum of all you posted is "your wrong, wrong, worng muslims were more civilized". Are you sure you arent a muslim yourself? You just seem extremely biased. Also yeah deporting thousands of little girls to make them sexual slaves is civilized as fuck.
Crusaders pillaging and burning shit is irrelevant, because they were reacting to the muslim occupation (and their pillaging), the main ideia was only retribution not the preservation of culture.
Saying that its meaningless that i am from Portugal is rediclous, history of Portugal was in my school curriculum one way or the other since like pre-school up to the university.
Also again, just to reiterate, im not saying that shady stuff didnt took place, especialy in the later crusades, but that surely wasnt their main purpose and you cant blame everyone for the mistakes of a few.
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote: You should read 'The crusade through Arab eyes'.
Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire (which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place) against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
Suffice to say Alexius wasn't very happy when a mob of unorganized barbarian religious lunatics led by greedy nobles arrived at his gates.
Religion was all an excuse and a manipulation of the common people, as usual. The jews and the orthodox Christians had as much to fear from the crusaders as the muslims did as they say jews, orthodox christians and muslims as basically the same. There is at least one battle in which arabs and crusaders fought other arabs and other crusaders. And of all massacres, the cannibalism at Ma'arra was the worst. It was basically crusaders eating whoever they could capture after sacking to achieve 'shock and awe'. The cannibalism wasn't the result of famine among the crusader soldiers. It was meant as intimidation.
Can't believe you want to argue this was a 'just war'. Didn't realize Breivik had internet in his cell block.
User was temp banned for this post.
WHAT?????????
not only is that incredibly wrong is also very stupid...
The bizantine empire started in 320s after christ, when the roman empire fell and was divided in oriental empire (bizantium) and western empire. Since islam only apeared in 622 how can byzantium be an agressor against Islam?
Get you fact rights my friend because you don't know shit..
He said against the arabs, not again Islam, it is not the same thing. Arabs existed way before Islam.
Maybe you should be less offensive and certain about yourself ? Next time please just read calmly.
I know it's not the same thing but even that is incredibly stupid since way before the arabs were anything more then nomads the romans were allready in charge of that area and before the romans there were the jews.
On May 13 2012 01:21 Kukaracha wrote: We do, because we have a genuine interest in history. We're not trying to prove that muslims are good or evil. Personally I don't give a damn, I'm simply interested in our past. I don't see where you took the idea that no one talks about the "pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population", atlhough it is true that the christian population was originally treated better by the conquerors of Spain, who were far more advanced than the indigenous population.
nah, the fact is that you very rarely will hear about the muslim aggression. you will almost always exclusively hear about the christian aggression and the christian atrocities. even in this thread that is evident. its understandable given the "blame the victor" mentality that has often risen up in our judgements of the past, but it is also extremely dishonest. as are the kind of statements like:
"were far more advanced than the indigenous population"
which simplifies a very complex issue far beyond what is strictly advisable.
True, you should therefore avoid questioning something concluded by historians.
It's somewhat ironic that you come up with this random "fact" that people always ramble about crusaders and not about djihadists and then speak about carefully looking at a complex problem.
However, even if this is true, how is this not logical for French people to learn about crusades, for example, as it's part of our ancesters' history? Muslims only set foot in France once, and we do learn this in schools. Aside from that, why should we learn Spanish and Egyptian history (although we do learn about the conquest of Spain, you know).
meh, historians rarely agree on much of anything. a man's got to pick and choose sometimes.
the fact is that it is rare to hear both sides of this issue, while it is extremely common to hear the of the Crusades as a one-sided aggression led by barbaric and backward Europeans against peaceful and advanced Muslims. the opposite, that it was peaceful and loving Christians fighting a desperate war of defense against bloodthirsty Muslims is just as untrue. both sides had been responsible for aggressions and atrocities, and many of the technological and scientific advancements of both sides were taken and absorbed and affected by the other side.
i don't know what point your making with the last paragraph. i don't know what people learn in French school's, or what French people want their children to learn. perhaps this rarity of which i speak is only common in America or among intellectuals in the American education system...
Ofc shell , for example al qaeda's holy war on US , ofc money and power factor in almost every human enterprise , that is if you understand the concepts behind those 2 words. But i do agree that most wars are about power/control.
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Why no one talks about the pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population? Why no one talks about the deportation of thousands of peninsular women? One muslim general alone took around 300,000 peninsular woman (supposedly virgins, so most likely underage girls) with him to Damascus.
We do, because we have a genuine interest in history. We're not trying to prove that muslims are good or evil. Personally I don't give a damn, I'm simply interested in our past. I don't see where you took the idea that no one talks about the "pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population", atlhough it is true that the christian population was originally treated better by the conquerors of Spain, who were far more advanced than the indigenous population.
The fact that you come from Portugal yourself is meaningless, by the way. Most of the population is unaware of their own history.
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Another thing this general took was one of the biggest peninsular treasures, a jewelled table belonging to King Solomon, wich takes us to the other point wich is the retarded glorification of claims of Muslim cultural and scientific contributions, like saying that the library of Cordoba alone had more Greek philosophical texts than all of Western Europe combined. Well shit, if they pillaged then hauled half of the treasures from europe no wonder they had a great library.
Pillage was fairly common back then. How do you think crusaders survived the long walk through Europe? How many cities do you think they burned to the ground? To put it simply, the only difference was that crusaders burnt everything when muslims were civilized enough to preserve valuable texts and knowledge. From your post I also don't expect you to know anything about antiquity, but many texts in the possession of sultans had simply been kept ever since the fall of the Roman empire.
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Here is a recap of the crusades. Muslims were shitting all over europe, Christians got pissed, gathered up took europe back then launched a counter-atack.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Read my first post and the post above it. You have obviously no idea of what you're talking about, and should at least admit it.
Despite you claiming that you only seek history accuracy, pretty much the sum of all you posted is "your wrong, wrong, worng muslims were more civilized". Are you sure you arent a muslim yourself? You just seem extremely biased. Also yeah deporting thousands of little girls to make them sexual slaves is civilized as fuck.
Crusaders pillaging and burning shit is irrelevant, because they were reacting to the muslim occupation (and their pillaging), the main ideia was only retribution not the preservation of culture.
Saying that its meaningless that i am from Portugal is rediclous, history of Portugal was in my school curriculum one way or the other since like pre-school up to the university.
Also again, just to reiterate, im not saying that shady stuff didnt took place, especialy in the later crusades, but that surely wasnt their main purpose and you cant blame everyone for the mistakes of a few.
On May 13 2012 00:16 Sanctimonius wrote: They began as an ill-formed, hazy movement to reclaim the Holy Land and became appropriated by the Popes to largely further their power politically, before becoming a political tool of smaller kings and nobles who wanted a smear of justification for their own actions.
I also fail to see how it was directed against the expansionism of Islam since it mostly expanded in Spain and nothing was done about this. Crusaders chose instead to attack another muslim faction, at the other side of the Mediterranean sea.
And no I'm not a muslim, I don't see how this has any importance. Care to explain?
Fantastic video. Thanks. Also that channel has a lot of interesting videos like this one; those who are interested in stuff like this should definitely check them out.
I didn't understand you were saying i was right or wrong?
because if you read your link :
"These started during the initial Muslim conquests under the expansionist Rashidun and Umayyad caliphs in the 7th century and continued by their successors until the mid-11th century."
See? It was a man, that wanted more power, money and lands, that united the arab nomad tribes and they faught a war for him.. was it for god? It never is..
Same for instance happened with the Huns or with the mongols.. they were always strong but they were divided and didn't have any type of interested in conquest, they did some pillaged here and there.. then comes a great leader.. a Attila for the Huns, Ghengis Khan or a Timur to unite the tribes or if you prefer that "civilization" under one leader and with one goal and boom many thousands died
All it takes is a leader to unite and inspire and if he wants and has support he might or might not do war for more land.. Now if he needs more support many tactics can be used, racism against a particular enemy, religion, spread of health pillage for the people etc..
The crusades were a chance to help out byzantines, but did they help? No.. they took their lands for themselves claimed they were kings of that areas and even attacked and pillage bizantine lands.. So no it was never for god.. It was for fame, honour, money and power...
It's funny how people always bring historical arguments to defend outdated ideas. (No offense meant, but that's my opinion about religion) What I don't find funny is that this explanation may look to some like it's meant to antagonize christian and muslims, which is not needed at all. Also, any decent textbook tells more about crusades than this post, which renders it quite obsolete.
Fantastic video. Thanks. Also that channel has a lot of interesting videos like this one; those who are interested in stuff like this should definitely check them out.
Agreed. Pretty much covered what I was about to say.
And one memoir is also really good. The Memoirs of Usama ibn Munqidh. It shows that religion was not everything. It provides an incredibly complex view on the Crusades.
And funny thing about the Ottoman conquest on Byzantium. After the conquest, all the Europeans were blaming one another.
Basically, they were saying "Yeah...the Turks are Turks BUT I HATE THOSE GODDAMN VENETIANS!!!" or the Byzantines, English, or other Italians.
Well u need to know that crusades happened in both side in all time and that religion was only a pretext to conquer regions, to have more influence, slaves, money etc... Arabs (so muslims) conquered Maghreb ( marueco, algeria, tunisia, lybia) then spain and were stopped at Tours in France by Charles Martel. Another thing is, which country has the most muslims in it : it's indonesia xd. Europe became christian because of crusades too ,even in Asia there were a lot of crusades.. All the religions are the same, religion is never choosed by the normal people it's used by the people of power to justify their actions.
On May 12 2012 22:17 nttea wrote: I've always felt blaming religion for wars is pretty ridiculous, they're mostly motivated by human greed and politics. From what i can see Islam and Christianity are pretty indistinguishable from each other in their Hypocrisy and vileness.
That's not a fair statement. Take Islam for example. The Arab expansion was incredible and throughout the Arab sultanates during from the 7th century and for a long period of time that lasted until the 13th or 12th, depends on how you look at it, these areas of Northern Africa, the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East went from depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture. Religion helps to consolidate the masses and provide a clear set of goals. That isn't always bad for the people and good for some supposed "puppeteers".
Well those areas going from "depressed unorganized areas into the world's center of culture" could just as well be attributed to cultural and political unification, which could have been any entity and didn't have to be Islam (much like what happened when alexander conquered the middle east) Still doesn't mean the religion isn't full of shit. edit: but errr... my main point was Christianity and Islam are very similar religions good or bad.
Never said religion was not full of shit :D I just pointed out what you stated, that religion as a motivator made cultural and political unification possible.
At the time, the Muslims weren't really very united until at least post Saladin. They didn't see it as "white Europeans trying to force their way on us." It was just a war over territory. The whole unjust religious invader thing never really came up untill hundreds of years later and was used as justification for 9/11.
Looking at a single event in history (well several since there were about 13 or so) and trying to view it fairly in its entirety is impossible. There are so many facets that need to be addressed to properly evaluate the crusades that trying to do so by means of forum post is pointless, and kind of silly...
I always hate when militant anti-theists try to claim that religion is the cause of almost all wars, including the crusades which I always considered more complicated than just "closed-minded bible-thumpers warring the heathens", despite fervent objections from said group that somehow if religion didn't exist, a large amount of wars would have never happened. It's ironically naive.
It's basically like "I earned my PHD in history the second I converted to anti-theism..."
I've witnessed several intellectuals, politicians, manipulating these historical events for a wide variety of reasons. Mostly for the purpose of demonizing Christianity, which would therefore not be much better than the Islamic faith, and demonization of the whole so called "imperialistic" Occident as well.
But more interistingly, I've also heard random people making claims that led me to believe that not many actually know what were the motives and reality of the crusades, and thus explaining the rethorical success of the demagogues mentionned above.
I can't prevent people from lying, so my post is there to enlighten the ones not too interested in history. I wouldn't discuss at length of the details of the Crusades, and whether or not they were victorious, I will just situate them in their historical perspective.
Crusaders
I). Intro
The Crusades were a series of religious expeditionary wars composed of European Christian (Catholic) fighters united under the banner of Christianity. They were called by the Pope and several European leaders with the goal of fighting Islamic expansionism, which, after trying to invade France through Spain earlier in History (battle of Tours 732), was currently conquering Christian Oriental lands (Byzantine) plus cutting off access to Jerusalem for Christian pilgrimages.
Ironically, the concept itself of "just war" used by Obama to explain the motives of some of the recent American wars, emerged from the Crusades. I say this because a lot of Obama supporters seem to be at the very least agnostic.
II). Historial perspective
First of, it is very important to keep in mind that the Crusades were reactionary expeditions. It was the Great Seljuq Empire (sunni Muslims) which initiated the conflict with the Christian Byzantines, and launched a series of invasions and wars which ended up being disastrous for the Byzantine Empire.
The Battle of Manzikert (1071) was the nail in the coffin and signed the military lose of the Byzantines.
The first crusade came 20 years after that.
Throughout all of them, unnecessary atrocities were commited on the Christian side. No one is denying that. Sacking of Jerusalem, large massacres, notably during the first crusade after the assieged refused to surrender and that the gates were breached.
First crusade victory, Jerusalem is taken
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
In the end, Constantinople finally fell to the Islamic Ottomans on 29 May 1453.
Fall of Constantinople
After that, the whole region got gradually more and more Islamized and is now 95 to 100% Muslims.
III). Conclusion
I'm under the impression that most people believe Orient has always been Islamic thus see the Crusades as an unjust war of conquest.
This wasn't meant to be a technical essay, but I hope a lot of you will now understand better the stupidity of this claim.
So you created a post that should clear misconceptions and in the process created post full of simplifications and even false statements ?
Let's start with the fact that for many the killing blow for the Byzantine Empire was aside from 1071 defeat, the conquest of Constantinople by the crusaders. How does this fit into your simplified view ?
Also concept of just war was known in antiquity and as we know it is mostly attributed to Romans and Greeks, although it had to exist even before.
Another thing is that presenting Byzantine Christians and western Crusaders as united by some kind of common Christian cause is another great simplification. Crusades were Catholic (not Christian) wars. Byzantines were mostly against crusades, especially after the first one.
In conclusion you seem to try to blame Muslim aggression for the Crusades by pointing out that the lands were Christian before that. To that I can easily point out that before that they were pagan and constant wars in the area make any assignment of blame unending process as we go back in history.
OP is so biased it's not even funny. I hope no one takes what he has purported as facts seriously. Saying the Crusades were reactionary is hopeful at best. I think you just hate Muslims.
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Why no one talks about the pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population? Why no one talks about the deportation of thousands of peninsular women? One muslim general alone took around 300,000 peninsular woman (supposedly virgins, so most likely underage girls) with him to Damascus.
We do, because we have a genuine interest in history. We're not trying to prove that muslims are good or evil. Personally I don't give a damn, I'm simply interested in our past. I don't see where you took the idea that no one talks about the "pillages, enslavements, crucifications etc. of the christian population", atlhough it is true that the christian population was originally treated better by the conquerors of Spain, who were far more advanced than the indigenous population.
The fact that you come from Portugal yourself is meaningless, by the way. Most of the population is unaware of their own history.
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Another thing this general took was one of the biggest peninsular treasures, a jewelled table belonging to King Solomon, wich takes us to the other point wich is the retarded glorification of claims of Muslim cultural and scientific contributions, like saying that the library of Cordoba alone had more Greek philosophical texts than all of Western Europe combined. Well shit, if they pillaged then hauled half of the treasures from europe no wonder they had a great library.
Pillage was fairly common back then. How do you think crusaders survived the long walk through Europe? How many cities do you think they burned to the ground? To put it simply, the only difference was that crusaders burnt everything when muslims were civilized enough to preserve valuable texts and knowledge. From your post I also don't expect you to know anything about antiquity, but many texts in the possession of sultans had simply been kept ever since the fall of the Roman empire.
On May 13 2012 00:49 Alexstrasas wrote: Here is a recap of the crusades. Muslims were shitting all over europe, Christians got pissed, gathered up took europe back then launched a counter-atack.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Read my first post and the post above it. You have obviously no idea of what you're talking about, and should at least admit it.
Despite you claiming that you only seek history accuracy, pretty much the sum of all you posted is "your wrong, wrong, worng muslims were more civilized". Are you sure you arent a muslim yourself? You just seem extremely biased. Also yeah deporting thousands of little girls to make them sexual slaves is civilized as fuck.
Crusaders pillaging and burning shit is irrelevant, because they were reacting to the muslim occupation (and their pillaging), the main ideia was only retribution not the preservation of culture.
Saying that its meaningless that i am from Portugal is rediclous, history of Portugal was in my school curriculum one way or the other since like pre-school up to the university.
Also again, just to reiterate, im not saying that shady stuff didnt took place, especialy in the later crusades, but that surely wasnt their main purpose and you cant blame everyone for the mistakes of a few.
Offer some evidence for you deportation claim, please.
Anyway, Muslims committed atrocities when conquering Spain (I use it, but I mean Iberian Peninsula) from Vizygoths (Germans who also conquered Spain). Christian reconquista committed atrocities when conquering Spain. Which one was worse. Hard to say. The fact that at that point in time Muslim Spain was one of the cultural centers of the world far above anything in Christian Europe apart only Byzantine Empire is quite well documented. Their treatment of conquered populations also is documented and appears much better than later treament of Muslims by Christian rulers. Jews are particularly glaring example.
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote: You should read 'The crusade through Arab eyes'.
Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire (which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place) against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
Suffice to say Alexius wasn't very happy when a mob of unorganized barbarian religious lunatics led by greedy nobles arrived at his gates.
Religion was all an excuse and a manipulation of the common people, as usual. The jews and the orthodox Christians had as much to fear from the crusaders as the muslims did as they say jews, orthodox christians and muslims as basically the same. There is at least one battle in which arabs and crusaders fought other arabs and other crusaders. And of all massacres, the cannibalism at Ma'arra was the worst. It was basically crusaders eating whoever they could capture after sacking to achieve 'shock and awe'. The cannibalism wasn't the result of famine among the crusader soldiers. It was meant as intimidation.
Can't believe you want to argue this was a 'just war'. Didn't realize Breivik had internet in his cell block.
User was temp banned for this post.
WHAT?????????
not only is that incredibly wrong is also very stupid...
The bizantine empire started in 320s after christ, when the roman empire fell and was divided in oriental empire (bizantium) and western empire. Since islam only apeared in 622 how can byzantium be an agressor against Islam?
Get you fact rights my friend because you don't know shit..
He said against the arabs, not again Islam, it is not the same thing. Arabs existed way before Islam.
Maybe you should be less offensive and certain about yourself ? Next time please just read calmly.
I know it's not the same thing but even that is incredibly stupid since way before the arabs were anything more then nomads the romans were allready in charge of that area and before the romans there were the jews.
TL e-thugs FTW
Byzantines and Persians were using Arabs against each other and fighting Arabs quite often. It is quite true that Byzantines were aggressor against Arabs at some point in time and Arabs were aggressors at some other point in time. Romans never conquered all of Arab territory.
I came here to see an intellectual discussion about the Crusades, not a religion-bashing contest. Use your brains please.
OP, I can't help but say that you're oversimplifying this by a HUGE margin. The Crusades were not a just war simply because of the fact that they were launched in aggression. You're right, the Muslims were responsible for launching aggressive expansionist policies as well, and that is not justified either, but simply because the opposition of the Crusaders weren't justified does not by extension mean that the Crusaders were justified.
Although there are some arguments to redeem the crusaders not a lot of valid ones are actually named in the OP, which seems to try to educate people on a subject it knows very little about.
For instance the battle of Manzikert you reference, you forget to mention that the reason this battle turned out so badly was DUE to the European powers, mercenary armies where commonplace, and in this situation the Byzantine emperor used European Catholics for this purpose. However, halfway through the battle the Europeans backstabbed the Byzantines, taking their modern-day Greek holdings to form the Latin Empire (which collapsed soon after).
And what you forget to mention about the first crusade that could actually help your argument is that Saladin razed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1010, possibly the most important Church for all Christians based on Jerusalems significance to the Christians and the many pilgrimages that centered around it, this action had brought the Christians into a incredibly aggressive state of mind against the muslims (one could compare it with what would happen if modern day Christians razed Mecca), a sentiment easily abused by the Pope when he called for the Crusade in 1096, combined with regional conflicts, zealousness and wealth of the nobility that took part it is understandable that the French, Belgian and Norman rulers involved heeded the call.
At the end of the day though it's all powerplays, what you need to understand is that unlike the Muslims, which where under the rule of massive empires in the time period the crusader took place, Europe was in no such state of union, whereas the Sunni or Shiite Caliph could just summon massive armies from their vast lands the European states needed a leader they could all serve under to combine their forces, due to European feudal history and renewed religious significance, the only persons that could take this role was the pope and patriarch.
If you can look at history without projecting your own religious beliefs onto it it should be pretty clear that Crusades, Jihads or any other war that ever happened where just plays to increase power through whatever means was effective at that time, be it developing an understanding with the Pope/Caliph or just gaining more land to rule.
On May 13 2012 04:52 Vorps wrote: I came here to see an intellectual discussion about the Crusades, not a religion-bashing contest. Use your brains please.
OP, I can't help but say that you're oversimplifying this by a HUGE margin. The Crusades were not a just war simply because of the fact that they were launched in aggression. You're right, the Muslims were responsible for launching aggressive expansionist policies as well, and that is not justified either, but simply because the opposition of the Crusaders weren't justified does not by extension mean that the Crusaders were justified.
- Wrote my dissertation on the crusades.
And what is "justification" if not a logical fallacy? If the crusades had not happened, then the arab expansion might not have been stopped, and as you well know: Every action, must face an equal and opposing reaction or it will keep rolling until it meets something that matches it. The rules of causality and logic dictate it.
Though I have to say, Christianity as a religion is a meek pile of shit that wont work politically. Compared with Catholicism, Jewish faith and Islam that is.
Jesus, in many ways was an incredible reformer. He challenged the outer rules. Breaking the sabbath, the whole mess with the collection plate in the temple. The golden rule. Very much an individualist and keen on separating church and state. Muhammad on the other hand, not so much. Probably why we needed a dark age. Had to figure out how to actually draw teachings that work out politically when it comes to Jesus.
On May 13 2012 05:18 Scootaloo wrote: Although there are some arguments to redeem the crusaders not a lot of valid ones are actually named in the OP, which seems to try to educate people on a subject it knows very little about.
For instance the battle of Manzikert you reference, you forget to mention that the reason this battle turned out so badly was DUE to the European powers, mercenary armies where commonplace, and in this situation the Byzantine emperor used European Catholics for this purpose. However, halfway through the battle the Europeans backstabbed the Byzantines, taking their modern-day Greek holdings to form the Latin Empire (which collapsed soon after).
And what you forget to mention about the first crusade that could actually help your argument is that Saladin razed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1010, possibly the most important Church for all Christians based on Jerusalems significance to the Christians and the many pilgrimages that centered around it, this action had brought the Christians into a incredibly aggressive state of mind against the muslims (one could compare it with what would happen if modern day Christians razed Mecca), a sentiment easily abused by the Pope when he called for the Crusade in 1096, combined with regional conflicts, zealousness and wealth of the nobility that took part it is understandable that the French, Belgian and Norman rulers involved heeded the call.
At the end of the day though it's all powerplays, what you need to understand is that unlike the Muslims, which where under the rule of massive empires in the time period the crusader took place, Europe was in no such state of union, whereas the Sunni or Shiite Caliph could just summon massive armies from their vast lands the European states needed a leader they could all serve under to combine their forces, due to European feudal history and renewed religious significance, the only persons that could take this role was the pope and patriarch.
If you can look at history without projecting your own religious beliefs onto it it should be pretty clear that Crusades, Jihads or any other war that ever happened where just plays to increase power through whatever means was effective at that time, be it developing an understanding with the Pope/Caliph or just gaining more land to rule.
You can always go deeper when talking about history. The intelligence lies in distinguishing what is necessary and what is not.
Assuming someone doesn't know about something when he doesn't directly talk about it proofs you're not interested in a meaningful discussion but rather showing off your knowledge.
Besides, it wasn't Saladin who razed the Holy Sepulcre in ~1010, since he lived in the XIIth century and led the Muslim army against the third crusade.
On May 13 2012 04:52 Vorps wrote: I came here to see an intellectual discussion about the Crusades, not a religion-bashing contest. Use your brains please.
OP, I can't help but say that you're oversimplifying this by a HUGE margin. The Crusades were not a just war simply because of the fact that they were launched in aggression. You're right, the Muslims were responsible for launching aggressive expansionist policies as well, and that is not justified either, but simply because the opposition of the Crusaders weren't justified does not by extension mean that the Crusaders were justified.
- Wrote my dissertation on the crusades.
And what is "justification" if not a logical fallacy? If the crusades had not happened, then the arab expansion might not have been stopped, and as you well know: Every action, must face an equal and opposing reaction or it will keep rolling until it meets something that matches it. The rules of causality and logic dictate it.
Though I have to say, Christianity as a religion is a meek pile of shit that wont work politically. Compared with Catholicism, Jewish faith and Islam that is.
Jesus, in many ways was an incredible reformer. He challenged the outer rules. Breaking the sabbath, the whole mess with the collection plate in the temple. The golden rule. Very much an individualist and keen on separating church and state. Muhammad on the other hand, not so much. Probably why we needed a dark age. Had to figure out how to actually draw teachings that work out politically when it comes to Jesus.
At the point when crusades happened the islamic expansion was at its weakest already. And note that arab is not equal to islamic. Most of the expansion at that time was done by Turks and crusades did not stop it, arguably crusades actually helped it in the long term by crippling Byzantine Empire. Arabs states in that time were divided and not united. So crusades definitely did not stop any arab exapnsion.
On May 12 2012 21:44 SiroKO wrote: I've witnessed several intellectuals, politicians, manipulating these historical events for a wide variety of reasons. Mostly for the purpose of demonizing Christianity, which would therefore not be much better than the Islamic faith, and demonization of the whole so called "imperialistic" Occident as well.
[...]
You can approach history as a story of exactly what happened and why.
Or you can look at it as a propaganda weapon in some sort of present day conflict.
These are mutually exclusive. Your loyalty either lies with "your side" of the cultural conflict or truth and objectivity.
On May 13 2012 03:59 GGTeMpLaR wrote: I always hate when militant anti-theists try to claim that religion is the cause of almost all wars, including the crusades which I always considered more complicated than just "closed-minded bible-thumpers warring the heathens", despite fervent objections from said group that somehow if religion didn't exist, a large amount of wars would have never happened. It's ironically naive.
It's basically like "I earned my PHD in history the second I converted to anti-theism..."
I don't think anyone other than angsty teenagers think that religion has caused all wars or is the cause of most wars.
However, anyone with any logical and reasoning skills with sufficient understanding of history can put two and two together and realize that religion HAS been and still is a very proficient manner of manipulation and causing wars or creating atmospheres that makes conflicts more likely. Religion is by no means the cause of the Crusades, the wars, or whatever. Humans are. If it wasn't religion it would be something else that madmen would use to justify killing millions, or political leaders from hundreds of years ago would have found other avenues of manipulation.
It is equally naive, however, to say that religion had no part in influencing these events, and the events of dozens of other major conflicts throughout history however. Correlation does not equal causation, I must state. But there is a correlation.
On May 12 2012 22:20 RelZo wrote: So, what was the Fourth Crusade again? + Show Spoiler +
I originally intended to write a lenghty post about the many reasons the OP is wrong, but I don't have the time nor motivation...he should just read more about the whole era
You can google it if you really want to learn, but here's a quick and dirty summary of the fourth crusade:
Pope Innocent III: Hey guys, we should take the Holy Land back from Muslim control. European monarchs: No thanks, we're good. Random European knights: Sure! Let's meet up in Venice and sail down to Egypt and kick some ass. Venice: What? You need ships? Well, sure we can give you ships, you just have to destroy one of our economic rivals first (a wealthy Christian port city across the Adriatic). Crusaders: I... I mean I guess so. That sounds okay. *fight* Innocent III: wtf guys, what are you doing? Crusaders: We had to, give us a break. *fight* Crusaders: Holy shit, they have a lot of nice stuff here. The Venetians were right, taking wealthy cities by force fucking rocks! Venice: See, I told you. While you're at it, Constantinople has even better stuff, you should take that city too... Crusaders: Fuck yeah, sounds good to me. *fight* Innocent III: Guys, wtf. Crusaders: IMMA DESTROY EVERYTHING I SEE BITCHES Innocent III: Guys, are you fucking kidding me, you're supposed to be fighting a Holy War about a thousand miles away from where you are? I'm going to excommunicate all of you little bastards. Crusaders: lolololol look at all the fucks I don't give, we're tearing this shit up. Everybody: Guys, seriously, wtf. Destroying the Library of Constantinople? The Hagia Sofia? Why you such assholes? Crusaders: Hokay, I think that's probably good. Let's go home! Grab as much expensive shit as you can. *return to Europe* Innocent III: Whoa, look at all that expensive shit. Nice job, everyone. Can I have some?
The end. Nobody ever took the Crusades seriously ever again, despite their being like 18 more.
Seems like instead of worrying about past crusades about religion, we should focus on current cursades against terrorism... Same horse different colour.
That being said, I would have to agree with your view that it was an unjust war, but it was completely politically motivated and religious has the ability to manipulate the masses to do things like burning women alive etc, so it was just mindless masses all agreeing a man in the sky said these people are evil. Now? Well at least not everyone is so stupid.
What about the nothern crusades around the baltic sea, they dont count in your world? The Southern crusades were a series of nonsense wars with little or no chance of lasting gains. a huge scam by the pope inorder to exert power in Europe.
On a personal note i find your post very disturbing with scary nationalistic undertones of nonsense.
On May 13 2012 05:18 Scootaloo wrote: Although there are some arguments to redeem the crusaders not a lot of valid ones are actually named in the OP, which seems to try to educate people on a subject it knows very little about.
For instance the battle of Manzikert you reference, you forget to mention that the reason this battle turned out so badly was DUE to the European powers, mercenary armies where commonplace, and in this situation the Byzantine emperor used European Catholics for this purpose. However, halfway through the battle the Europeans backstabbed the Byzantines, taking their modern-day Greek holdings to form the Latin Empire (which collapsed soon after).
And what you forget to mention about the first crusade that could actually help your argument is that Saladin razed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1010, possibly the most important Church for all Christians based on Jerusalems significance to the Christians and the many pilgrimages that centered around it, this action had brought the Christians into a incredibly aggressive state of mind against the muslims (one could compare it with what would happen if modern day Christians razed Mecca), a sentiment easily abused by the Pope when he called for the Crusade in 1096, combined with regional conflicts, zealousness and wealth of the nobility that took part it is understandable that the French, Belgian and Norman rulers involved heeded the call.
At the end of the day though it's all powerplays, what you need to understand is that unlike the Muslims, which where under the rule of massive empires in the time period the crusader took place, Europe was in no such state of union, whereas the Sunni or Shiite Caliph could just summon massive armies from their vast lands the European states needed a leader they could all serve under to combine their forces, due to European feudal history and renewed religious significance, the only persons that could take this role was the pope and patriarch.
If you can look at history without projecting your own religious beliefs onto it it should be pretty clear that Crusades, Jihads or any other war that ever happened where just plays to increase power through whatever means was effective at that time, be it developing an understanding with the Pope/Caliph or just gaining more land to rule.
You can always go deeper when talking about history. The intelligence lies in distinguishing what is necessary and what is not.
Assuming someone doesn't know about something when he doesn't directly talk about it proofs you're not interested in a meaningful discussion but rather showing off your knowledge.
Besides, it wasn't Saladin who razed the Holy Sepulcre in ~1010, since he lived in the XIIth century and led the Muslim army against the third crusade.
Fuck man, feel free to address any of the opposing arguments to your initial OP AT ANY TIME. I don't think you understand the meaning of irony when the only post you've made discussing anything was probably some paraphrased cut and paste job you did in the OP, and then after that you've just come into this thread to take jabs at other people by vaguely referring to them as being "not interested in meaningful discussion" and then not actually rebutting anything that is said, leaving it to other people to do. You're a hypocrite.
P.S. And occassionally throwing in one-liners like: "It wasn't Saladin who razed the Holy Sepulcre..." NO-ONE WAS TALKING ABOUT THAT. Nice try throwing in diversions to keep people off track and avoiding the main arguments. That's what I hate about Christians like you - when you're debating stuff like evolution occasionally you'll throw in lines like: "What about the Cambrian explosion?" And it's like, fuck, you're not actually interested in realising that you don't know shit compared to scientists, in this case, you don't know shit compared to people who have actually studied this in history, but you just keep trying to reach for more arguments in the hope that one of them will show Christianity in a good light and be like: "Aha! I finally caught you out with an anomaly which scientists/historians have yet to disprove!".
There's so much misinformation in some posts. Crusades in my opinion can't be justified. There were more than one crusade, so it wasn't catholic resistance: in fact they tried many times to retake Jerusalem ( captured during the first crusade but then lost). And the reasons for this wars weren't absolutely religious. Yes, there were some fanatics, but even the Pope, accordin to many historians, declared this war for non-religious reasons. And many soldier weren't there to fight for God, rather for the $$ or maybe God's grace. And the muslim wolrd was light year ahead of the catholic one. Maybe people are forgetting that in Europe many Latin and Greek books got burnt/lost because the church didn't allow people to read them (and we're also talking about very important book). Arab medicine was on a complete another level: I read from a history book that catholic medics for example to heal dementia cut a cross on top of the head of the ill to make "the devil exit", while the Arab tried to change his alimentary habit (soldiers at the time lacked a good alimentation, and that was the cause of many kind of diseases). There were some Arab philosophers (Averroè and others) who actually even were interested in the Aristothelic view of the world, so we can't really say Arab were close minded. Yeah, of course there were some episodes of intolerance toward Christians, but they still offered something like a forced conversion. And come from a Christian background. Hell, even Wojtila asked for forgiveness for the terrible act catholics did in the past. Even Christians are men, they can be wrong sometimes: there's really no need to defend even if they did something wrong.
On May 13 2012 06:27 IGotPlayguuu wrote: There's so much misinformation in some posts. Crusades in my opinion can't be justified. There were more than one crusade, so it wasn't catholic resistance: in fact they tried many times to retake Jerusalem ( captured during the first crusade but then lost). And the reasons for this wars weren't absolutely religious. Yes, there were some fanatics, but even the Pope, accordin to many historians, declared this war for non-religious reasons. And many soldier weren't there to fight for God, rather for the $$ or maybe God's grace. And the muslim wolrd was light year ahead of the catholic one. Maybe people are forgetting that in Europe many Latin and Greek books got burnt/lost because the church didn't allow people to read them (and we're also talking about very important book). Arab medicine was on a complete another level: I read from a history book that catholic medics for example to heal dementia cut a cross on top of the head of the ill to make "the devil exit", while the Arab tried to change his alimentary habit (soldiers at the time lacked a good alimentation, and that was the cause of many kind of diseases). There were some Arab philosophers (Averroè and others) who actually even were interested in the Aristothelic view of the world, so we can't really say Arab were close minded. Yeah, of course there were some episodes of intolerance toward Christians, but they still offered something like a forced conversion. And come from a Christian background. Hell, even Wojtila asked for forgiveness for the terrible act catholics did in the past. Even Christians are men, they can be wrong sometimes: there's really no need to defend even if they did something wrong.
I'm not sure of understanding your digression on Islamic scientific accomplishments. Do you mean that technological and/or scientific superiority justifies colonization ?
I have to disagree with a few parts and add a bit more information.
The purpose was to get the "Holyland" back for Christianity. This time of History reveals that Popes had more power than kings; they were essentially kings themselves. My teacher said that Pope Innocent III was the most powerful pope in Western Civilization. (Forgot a lot of details, its been 2 months since exam ) Quite interestingly, a pope (forgot his name) excommunicated an entire kingdom because of the investiture conflict. He made the king travel to his winter palace and beg for forgiveness. The king had to shout from the outside because the Pope wouldn't let him inside.
Essentially, the crusades was triggered by Christianity. The Pope told men that if they went on this battle, their sins would be forgiven. From my class lectures, I felt as if the Pope was acting out of ego rather than for the sake of Christianity. To me, it was about conquering more land and more power to fund the construction of more churches.
No, indeed there was absolutely no colonization. I really don't know how you can possibly think of an Islamic colonization in this contest. They invaded the Byzantine empire, but invading is one thing in my opinion (taking lands because you need it), colonizing it's kinda different (spreading your culture, destroying the native cultures). The reason for the crusades, trust me , wasn't resistance, it was rathe an offensive. Again, the european world was to variegated to be united under the "let's resist the common enemy". For example many Holy Roman Emperor werent even supporting the Pope, yet they went on the crusade (Frederick Barbarossa, who wasn't in good terms with the previous Pope, but to make peace with the new went on the campaign). Don't try to put some deep idealogical reasons to a war waged for practical purposes.
On May 13 2012 05:18 Scootaloo wrote: Although there are some arguments to redeem the crusaders not a lot of valid ones are actually named in the OP, which seems to try to educate people on a subject it knows very little about.
For instance the battle of Manzikert you reference, you forget to mention that the reason this battle turned out so badly was DUE to the European powers, mercenary armies where commonplace, and in this situation the Byzantine emperor used European Catholics for this purpose. However, halfway through the battle the Europeans backstabbed the Byzantines, taking their modern-day Greek holdings to form the Latin Empire (which collapsed soon after).
And what you forget to mention about the first crusade that could actually help your argument is that Saladin razed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1010, possibly the most important Church for all Christians based on Jerusalems significance to the Christians and the many pilgrimages that centered around it, this action had brought the Christians into a incredibly aggressive state of mind against the muslims (one could compare it with what would happen if modern day Christians razed Mecca), a sentiment easily abused by the Pope when he called for the Crusade in 1096, combined with regional conflicts, zealousness and wealth of the nobility that took part it is understandable that the French, Belgian and Norman rulers involved heeded the call.
At the end of the day though it's all powerplays, what you need to understand is that unlike the Muslims, which where under the rule of massive empires in the time period the crusader took place, Europe was in no such state of union, whereas the Sunni or Shiite Caliph could just summon massive armies from their vast lands the European states needed a leader they could all serve under to combine their forces, due to European feudal history and renewed religious significance, the only persons that could take this role was the pope and patriarch.
If you can look at history without projecting your own religious beliefs onto it it should be pretty clear that Crusades, Jihads or any other war that ever happened where just plays to increase power through whatever means was effective at that time, be it developing an understanding with the Pope/Caliph or just gaining more land to rule.
You can always go deeper when talking about history. The intelligence lies in distinguishing what is necessary and what is not.
Assuming someone doesn't know about something when he doesn't directly talk about it proofs you're not interested in a meaningful discussion but rather showing off your knowledge.
Besides, it wasn't Saladin who razed the Holy Sepulcre in ~1010, since he lived in the XIIth century and led the Muslim army against the third crusade.
Fuck man, feel free to address any of the opposing arguments to your initial OP AT ANY TIME. I don't think you understand the meaning of irony when the only post you've made discussing anything was probably some paraphrased cut and paste job you did in the OP, and then after that you've just come into this thread to take jabs at other people by vaguely referring to them as being "not interested in meaningful discussion" and then not actually rebutting anything that is said, leaving it to other people to do. You're a hypocrite.
P.S. And occassionally throwing in one-liners like: "It wasn't Saladin who razed the Holy Sepulcre..." NO-ONE WAS TALKING ABOUT THAT. Nice try throwing in diversions to keep people off track and avoiding the main arguments. That's what I hate about Christians like you - when you're debating stuff like evolution occasionally you'll throw in lines like: "What about the Cambrian explosion?" And it's like, fuck, you're not actually interested in realising that you don't know shit compared to scientists, in this case, you don't know shit compared to people who have actually studied this in history, but you just keep trying to reach for more arguments in the hope that one of them will show Christianity in a good light and be like: "Aha! I finally caught you out with an anomaly which scientists/historians have yet to disprove!".
I definitely don't want to debate someone who assumes that anyone complaining about the overly-biased modern view of the Christian Crusades must be a Christian Creationist.
You're so full of certitudes and idiotic cliches as long as insulting.
I'm humble, and recognize that I've a lot to learn, but certainly not from someone like you.
On May 12 2012 21:44 SiroKO wrote: Mostly for the purpose of demonizing Christianity, which would therefore not be much better than the Islamic faith
in fact, they're the same, and both should be treated just as any another religion, because that's what they are. two religions in an ocean of religions.
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote: Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire (which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place) against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
This is an accurate summation of the primary actors' motivations. The Byzatines had been under pressure from the advancing Turks for a long time, and that is why Alexius requested help, mainly in the form of mercenaries and such, from the west. The Pope saw this an opportunity and called for a crusade. The European nobility's youngest sons, those bereft of land and power because they had older siblings who went first in the line of succession, saw this as a chance to acquire land and wealth, and as we know, the Holy Land ended up being fragmented and ruled by a number of such warlords. Though it is important to note that the Crusades were not driven only by cynical opportunists but sincere idealists as well.
Alexius did not expect to meet religious fanatics or righteous conquerors (and they did cause significant damage even as they traveled through Europe, animated as they were by their zealotry, leading up to the earliest recorded massacres of jewish populations in Europe). This lead to miscommunication and resentment, and other related accidents, including a massacre of the crusaders at the hands of the Turks, and eventually this would contribute in turn to a more widespread myth of Greek perfidy, which would contribute at least indirectly to the eventual fall of Constantinople. At least this is what I remember.
On May 13 2012 06:06 corose wrote: Was the OP written by FOX News?
I second Mango Chicken... that's really what this seems like.
The OP is so bare... could you at least cite where this information is coming from? Or having at least some more content?
I agree. A lot of what the OP said amounts to mere right-wing babble.
OP, thanks for starting a great topic of discussion, but your premise is incorrect. The conventional understanding of the crusades is not inaccurate in the least.
Enough false and myopic platitudes. Enough revisionist history.
On May 13 2012 06:06 corose wrote: Was the OP written by FOX News?
I second Mango Chicken... that's really what this seems like.
The OP is so bare... could you at least cite where this information is coming from? Or having at least some more content?
I agree. A lot of what the OP said amounts to mere right-wing babble.
OP, thanks for starting a great topic of discussion, but your premise is incorrect. The conventional understanding of the crusades is not inaccurate in the least.
Enough false and myopic platitudes. Enough revisionist history.
But you have no idea how boring non-revised history is!!
On May 13 2012 05:18 Scootaloo wrote: Although there are some arguments to redeem the crusaders not a lot of valid ones are actually named in the OP, which seems to try to educate people on a subject it knows very little about.
For instance the battle of Manzikert you reference, you forget to mention that the reason this battle turned out so badly was DUE to the European powers, mercenary armies where commonplace, and in this situation the Byzantine emperor used European Catholics for this purpose. However, halfway through the battle the Europeans backstabbed the Byzantines, taking their modern-day Greek holdings to form the Latin Empire (which collapsed soon after).
And what you forget to mention about the first crusade that could actually help your argument is that Saladin razed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1010, possibly the most important Church for all Christians based on Jerusalems significance to the Christians and the many pilgrimages that centered around it, this action had brought the Christians into a incredibly aggressive state of mind against the muslims (one could compare it with what would happen if modern day Christians razed Mecca), a sentiment easily abused by the Pope when he called for the Crusade in 1096, combined with regional conflicts, zealousness and wealth of the nobility that took part it is understandable that the French, Belgian and Norman rulers involved heeded the call.
At the end of the day though it's all powerplays, what you need to understand is that unlike the Muslims, which where under the rule of massive empires in the time period the crusader took place, Europe was in no such state of union, whereas the Sunni or Shiite Caliph could just summon massive armies from their vast lands the European states needed a leader they could all serve under to combine their forces, due to European feudal history and renewed religious significance, the only persons that could take this role was the pope and patriarch.
If you can look at history without projecting your own religious beliefs onto it it should be pretty clear that Crusades, Jihads or any other war that ever happened where just plays to increase power through whatever means was effective at that time, be it developing an understanding with the Pope/Caliph or just gaining more land to rule.
You can always go deeper when talking about history. The intelligence lies in distinguishing what is necessary and what is not.
Assuming someone doesn't know about something when he doesn't directly talk about it proofs you're not interested in a meaningful discussion but rather showing off your knowledge.
Besides, it wasn't Saladin who razed the Holy Sepulcre in ~1010, since he lived in the XIIth century and led the Muslim army against the third crusade.
Fuck man, feel free to address any of the opposing arguments to your initial OP AT ANY TIME. I don't think you understand the meaning of irony when the only post you've made discussing anything was probably some paraphrased cut and paste job you did in the OP, and then after that you've just come into this thread to take jabs at other people by vaguely referring to them as being "not interested in meaningful discussion" and then not actually rebutting anything that is said, leaving it to other people to do. You're a hypocrite.
P.S. And occassionally throwing in one-liners like: "It wasn't Saladin who razed the Holy Sepulcre..." NO-ONE WAS TALKING ABOUT THAT. Nice try throwing in diversions to keep people off track and avoiding the main arguments. That's what I hate about Christians like you - when you're debating stuff like evolution occasionally you'll throw in lines like: "What about the Cambrian explosion?" And it's like, fuck, you're not actually interested in realising that you don't know shit compared to scientists, in this case, you don't know shit compared to people who have actually studied this in history, but you just keep trying to reach for more arguments in the hope that one of them will show Christianity in a good light and be like: "Aha! I finally caught you out with an anomaly which scientists/historians have yet to disprove!".
I definitely don't want to debate someone who assumes that anyone complaining about the overly-biased modern view of the Christian Crusades must be a Christian Creationist.
You're so full of certitudes and idiotic cliches as long as insulting.
I'm humble, and recognize that I've a lot to learn, but certainly not from someone like you.
Except you're not being humble (except for the last sentence where you wrote that you were humble). Dozens of people have come into this thread explaining to you why your OP is wrong, yet instead of admitting that the points you made were heavily biased and ill-informed, you've continued to hold to the view that Christians were just and that the opponents of your position haven't made their case. The fact that you felt it was your role to "shut down this argument that the Crusades were bad once and for all" in your OP instead of posting something along the lines of: "I'm interested in the Crusades, how do you guys feel about the following perspective?" Shows that your intention was anything but to give yourself a chance to learn.
Please feel free to inform us where did you learn the material in your OP? A history degree? A book on apologetics? A quick Wikipedia search? Hearing it from a pastor at a Church? What made you take the position that the Christians were the good guys, did you balance up the two sides of the argument after reading all the material and was there overwhelming evidence that the Muslims were the wrongdoers?
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote: Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire (which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place) against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
This is an accurate summation of the primary actors' motivations. The Byzatines had been under pressure from the advancing Turks for a long time, and that is why Alexius requested help, mainly in the form of mercenaries and such, from the west. The Pope saw this an opportunity and called for a crusade. The European nobility's youngest sons, those bereft of land and power because they had older siblings who went first in the line of succession, saw this as a chance to acquire land and wealth, and as we know, the Holy Land ended up being fragmented and ruled by a number of such warlords. Though it is important to note that the Crusades were not driven only by cynical opportunists but sincere idealists as well.
Alexius did not expect to meet religious fanatics or righteous conquerors (and they did cause significant damage even as they traveled through Europe, animated as they were by their zealotry, leading up to the earliest recorded massacres of jewish populations in Europe). This lead to miscommunication and resentment, and other related accidents, including a massacre of the crusaders at the hands of the Turks, and eventually this would contribute in turn to a more widespread myth of Greek perfidy, which would contribute at least indirectly to the eventual fall of Constantinople. At least this is what I remember.
Can we just talk about the idea that the Crusades were made up of mostly impoverished, land-hungry younger sons for a minute. That's actually one of the most common fallacies told about the Crusades. This all comes from a guy named Georges Duby, who is one of the most famous 20th century medieval historians. During his career, he wrote a massive analysis of the Burgundy region of France in which he noted the presence of a great many landless younger sons and he speculated that this could be the cause of the Crusades. This idea has seeped into the public consciousness as one of the major causes of the Crusades.
In fact, later Crusades historians have done studies showing that, in fact, most of the individuals who went on Crusades were not younger sons looking for land, but were in fact eldest surviving children and landholders. Keep in mind that going on a Crusade was an extraordinarily expensive enterprise which only the nobility of substantial means could generally go on crusade (at least until the development of a more structured logistical apparatus starting under Innocent III). Also, keep in mind that for most of the Crusaders, there was absolutely no way they could be at all certain there would be anything other than financial ruination at the conclusion of their journey.
It's not a big deal at all, but for some reason it really bugs me to see this argument being made over and over again when its simply not true.
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote: Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire (which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place) against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
This is an accurate summation of the primary actors' motivations. The Byzatines had been under pressure from the advancing Turks for a long time, and that is why Alexius requested help, mainly in the form of mercenaries and such, from the west. The Pope saw this an opportunity and called for a crusade. The European nobility's youngest sons, those bereft of land and power because they had older siblings who went first in the line of succession, saw this as a chance to acquire land and wealth, and as we know, the Holy Land ended up being fragmented and ruled by a number of such warlords. Though it is important to note that the Crusades were not driven only by cynical opportunists but sincere idealists as well.
Alexius did not expect to meet religious fanatics or righteous conquerors (and they did cause significant damage even as they traveled through Europe, animated as they were by their zealotry, leading up to the earliest recorded massacres of jewish populations in Europe). This lead to miscommunication and resentment, and other related accidents, including a massacre of the crusaders at the hands of the Turks, and eventually this would contribute in turn to a more widespread myth of Greek perfidy, which would contribute at least indirectly to the eventual fall of Constantinople. At least this is what I remember.
Can we just talk about the idea that the Crusades were made up of mostly impoverished, land-hungry younger sons for a minute. That's actually one of the most common fallacies told about the Crusades. This all comes from a guy named Georges Duby, who is one of the most famous 20th century medieval historians. During his career, he wrote a massive analysis of the Burgundy region of France in which he noted the presence of a great many landless younger sons and he speculated that this could be the cause of the Crusades. This idea has seeped into the public consciousness as one of the major causes of the Crusades.
In fact, later Crusades historians have done studies showing that, in fact, most of the individuals who went on Crusades were not younger sons looking for land, but were in fact eldest surviving children and landholders. Keep in mind that going on a Crusade was an extraordinarily expensive enterprise which only the nobility of substantial means could generally go on crusade (at least until the development of a more structured logistical apparatus starting under Innocent III). Also, keep in mind that for most of the Crusaders, there was absolutely no way they could be at all certain there would be anything other than financial ruination at the conclusion of their journey.
It's not a big deal at all, but for some reason it really bugs me to see this argument being made over and over again when its simply not true.
That's a very interesting point to make and certainly a good description of the later crusades - being run by kings and their vassals. But does it apply to the First Crusade as much? Think about it, the primary actors in the First Crusade weren't the first-born sons of nobles, and maybe they were trying to gain acclaim and riches for themselves that wouldn't be otherwise available to them. But in later crusades the kings of Europe were running the show, so it makes sense that they would insist on taking the biggest nobles with them - they could raise arger armies, had fought together before, and powerful rivals weren't being left behing to forment dissent in the homeland. There's also the pilgrimage aspect of the later crusades, and who would need more forgiven, the minor son of a noble, or the noble himself who killed rivals, fought monks and disobeyed his king when it suited him?
Each crusade had a different composition due to the aims and the motivators behind them. I would be really interested to see if this older concept applies more to the First Crusade than others.
Also to the man from Portugal who has dismissed every other opinion than his own simply because he is from Portugal and we aren't - can I ask what would move us beyond being armchair historians? What would allow us to talk and debate the Crusades? Well done for completing a basic education in history from your schooling, because I've never heard of a national curriculum in history that is biased and shows that country in an overly favourable light. Can I ask what level of education will you accept for us to talk on this? I mean, I have a degree in history, we had someone else mention their PhD was on this topic. Are we allowed to have an opinion? Or do we have to be from Portugal itself? If so, I need to talk to an awful lot of eminent mediaeval historians and let them know they don't know what they are talking about, because they weren't there, man.
Just imagine a foreign rable of hungry manic religious peasants mixed in with mercenaries looking for bounty and their next pay and arogant nobility and their bodyguards. What would they do in Constantinopel if you let them in. Most of them don't even speak your language. Your city has food women and gold erverything a tired soldier wants.
Can you think of the type of mindset of the common man in medieval times. People die of horrible deceases like the plague and bad harvest and childbearing. Your malnourished brain emediately believes it when a preacher tells you God is angry with the Christians because you let the muslims take your holy city. Superstition and symbolism was very important then. They believed in an interventionist God. What is the life of a heathen worth if the lives of Christians is so fragile. May you fall on the crusade you are saved and enter the kingdom of God releaving you of your sinners misserable earthy life.
Kings hope to strenghten their position by filling their coffins by plunder, taxation of new traderoutes and favour with the pope affirming your ligitamacy. This is more profitable then continuing waging war once in a while with neighbouring European royals. It gives a legitamate reseason to cooperate with old enemies without loosing face or credibility. You are less likely to get stabbed in the back if your ally is also far away from home surrounded by enemies.
The pope ceases the oppertunity to reduce Muslim influence and expansion. It reduces the infighting in Europe and enlarges his power. An external common enemy unites.
Was it a just war? Nations and cultures evolve sometimes to usurp another. There can always be a justification thought up afterwards. So the question is folly. 99% of wars are started over resources. We wouldn't be interested in Iraq without the oil. About Afghanistan because of rare metals. Sudan attacks Dafur because of oil. Cenral Africa the Kony ploy. Rare metals again. Ruanda civil war was the perceived privilegde of a tribe over another. Envy over resources. Religion is only a device to direct and channel people for the big game.
Ultimately the knowledge picked up during the crusades led to the renaisance. Most of the classic knowledge was preserved by Islamic scholars. They also expanded the knowlegde of chemistry, math and architecture. European scholars started to study their history again.
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote: Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire (which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place) against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
This is an accurate summation of the primary actors' motivations. The Byzatines had been under pressure from the advancing Turks for a long time, and that is why Alexius requested help, mainly in the form of mercenaries and such, from the west. The Pope saw this an opportunity and called for a crusade. The European nobility's youngest sons, those bereft of land and power because they had older siblings who went first in the line of succession, saw this as a chance to acquire land and wealth, and as we know, the Holy Land ended up being fragmented and ruled by a number of such warlords. Though it is important to note that the Crusades were not driven only by cynical opportunists but sincere idealists as well.
Alexius did not expect to meet religious fanatics or righteous conquerors (and they did cause significant damage even as they traveled through Europe, animated as they were by their zealotry, leading up to the earliest recorded massacres of jewish populations in Europe). This lead to miscommunication and resentment, and other related accidents, including a massacre of the crusaders at the hands of the Turks, and eventually this would contribute in turn to a more widespread myth of Greek perfidy, which would contribute at least indirectly to the eventual fall of Constantinople. At least this is what I remember.
Can we just talk about the idea that the Crusades were made up of mostly impoverished, land-hungry younger sons for a minute. That's actually one of the most common fallacies told about the Crusades. This all comes from a guy named Georges Duby, who is one of the most famous 20th century medieval historians. During his career, he wrote a massive analysis of the Burgundy region of France in which he noted the presence of a great many landless younger sons and he speculated that this could be the cause of the Crusades. This idea has seeped into the public consciousness as one of the major causes of the Crusades.
In fact, later Crusades historians have done studies showing that, in fact, most of the individuals who went on Crusades were not younger sons looking for land, but were in fact eldest surviving children and landholders. Keep in mind that going on a Crusade was an extraordinarily expensive enterprise which only the nobility of substantial means could generally go on crusade (at least until the development of a more structured logistical apparatus starting under Innocent III). Also, keep in mind that for most of the Crusaders, there was absolutely no way they could be at all certain there would be anything other than financial ruination at the conclusion of their journey.
It's not a big deal at all, but for some reason it really bugs me to see this argument being made over and over again when its simply not true.
That's a very interesting point to make and certainly a good description of the later crusades - being run by kings and their vassals. But does it apply to the First Crusade as much? Think about it, the primary actors in the First Crusade weren't the first-born sons of nobles, and maybe they were trying to gain acclaim and riches for themselves that wouldn't be otherwise available to them. But in later crusades the kings of Europe were running the show, so it makes sense that they would insist on taking the biggest nobles with them - they could raise arger armies, had fought together before, and powerful rivals weren't being left behing to forment dissent in the homeland. There's also the pilgrimage aspect of the later crusades, and who would need more forgiven, the minor son of a noble, or the noble himself who killed rivals, fought monks and disobeyed his king when it suited him?
Each crusade had a different composition due to the aims and the motivators behind them. I would be really interested to see if this older concept applies more to the First Crusade than others.
Also to the man from Portugal who has dismissed every other opinion than his own simply because he is from Portugal and we aren't - can I ask what would move us beyond being armchair historians? What would allow us to talk and debate the Crusades? Well done for completing a basic education in history from your schooling, because I've never heard of a national curriculum in history that is biased and shows that country in an overly favourable light. Can I ask what level of education will you accept for us to talk on this? I mean, I have a degree in history, we had someone else mention their PhD was on this topic. Are we allowed to have an opinion? Or do we have to be from Portugal itself? If so, I need to talk to an awful lot of eminent mediaeval historians and let them know they don't know what they are talking about, because they weren't there, man.
As far as my understanding goes this still applies to the First Crusade. Most crusader knights were expected to pay their own way to the Holy Land. As a result, it generally took considerable means to be able to pay for the trip (or to have sufficient holdings to pawn of sell some or all of them for the cash necessary), means which tended to be beyond most younger siblings who were dependent on the generosity of their elder brothers or some other patron. This is especially true because knights were generally expected to bring with them a retinue of their own soldiers. This is not to say that there were no younger brothers among the Crusaders, because clearly there were however in contrast to the historical mythology they were not the reason for the First Crusade, nor did they make up as significant a portion of the Crusade as one might think based on that assumption.
It is, a somewhat incomplete picture of the Crusade as a whole but if you look at the leadership of the First Crusade the only significant figures to be in a position of even some semblance of authority who was not either the eldest or the eldest surviving son in their family was Hugh of Vermandois and Baldwin of Bouillon. Hugh was the brother of King Philip I of France (and keep in mind that the Kingdom of France in the late 11th century was a shadow of what it would become, although the same could be said of nearly all the monarchies of the period) and even then he was the Count of Vermandois and a fairly significant landholder in his own right. Baldwin was the younger brother of Godrey of Bouillon and eventually ended up becoming Count of Edessa then King of Jerusalem, mostly through his own initiative and blind luck.
Why oh why do I read these threads... falsehoods and vitriol abound.
Maybe instead of arguing about it here, everyone should go read some books on it. If you think that takes too much time than you shouldn't be discussing it in the first place. Obviously one book is not enough; all scientists and historians are human beings and have something called "bias".
Also, one should not mistake how people leading a religion do and what the religion teaches. People would be wrong to blame Christianity itself for Papal greed, as there is no line of doctrine endorsing any such thing. Again, people are imperfect and fallible.
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
As a history student at the Utrecht University I have to add that people sometimes forget that the crusades weren't exclusively aimed at the Middle East, but that there were crusades going on in Eastern Europe as well. What this adds is that with these included the whole picture becomes a lot more complex and sophisticated than just "religion"; there are different reasons for everyone involved, in this case at least combination of religious fanaticism, a quest for wealth, a case of overpopulation and ofcourse a great deal of political influence, and there is probably another dozen or so smaller incentives for the crusades. Trying to pinpoint the crusades on 1 or 2 reasons just doesn't work out.
On May 13 2012 08:24 Introvert wrote: Why oh why do I read these threads... falsehoods and vitriol abound.
Maybe instead of arguing about it here, everyone should go read some books on it. If you think that takes too much time than you shouldn't be discussing it in the first place. Obviously one book is not enough; all scientists and historians are human beings and have something called "bias".
Also, one should not mistake how people leading a religion do and what the religion teaches. People would be wrong to blame Christianity itself for Papal greed, as there is no line of doctrine endorsing any such thing. Again, people are imperfect and fallible.
Go read some books.
But mate why would I read a book WHEN I OBVIOUSLY ALREADY HAVE A OPINION BASED ON WIKIPEDIA AND MY LIFE MATE? BOOKS ARE FOR NERDS AND TAKE TOO MUCH TIME MATE!
/Sarcasm aside, pretty much this. I suggest if you want to get more facts read some (proper) book(s!). What you're seeing here is a mix of facts / ideas without much if any supporting evidence.
What a coincidence that one of the only guys on TL who advocate the right-wing xenophobic party in the French election gives us this bit of balanced education on the history of Islam vs Christianity.
This, seriously:
On May 13 2012 00:42 Kukaracha wrote: Useless post and thread, does not belong in the "General" section but in blogs at best. The OP is a poorly understood and strongly biased restranscription of a Wikipedia article.
A short list of Siroko's shortcomings :
What he says can only be applied mostly to the first crusade,
Brushes off the fourth crusade as unimportant, although it essentially destroyed the Byzantine Empire and thus allowed a later Ottoman conquest,
Considers Europe as a unified continent under the christian banner even though any glimpse at any history book suggests otherwise,
Compares short muslim incursions in France with the establishment of catholic kingdoms in today's Israël,
Ignores the political dimension of any of these conflicts, where religion sometimes didn't even matter (an example being the alliance of France and Syria against Egypt).
On May 13 2012 08:24 Introvert wrote: Why oh why do I read these threads... falsehoods and vitriol abound.
Maybe instead of arguing about it here, everyone should go read some books on it. If you think that takes too much time than you shouldn't be discussing it in the first place. Obviously one book is not enough; all scientists and historians are human beings and have something called "bias".
Also, one should not mistake how people leading a religion do and what the religion teaches. People would be wrong to blame Christianity itself for Papal greed, as there is no line of doctrine endorsing any such thing. Again, people are imperfect and fallible.
Go read some books.
This. In addition, Catholic Christianity is an entirely different religion to Protestant Christianity. I doubt you'll find any Protestant pastors preaching about the Crusades in a good light for anyone involved.
Brother will kill brother Spilling blood across the land Killing for religion Something I don't understand
Fools like me,who cross the sea And come to foreign lands Ask the sheep,for their beliefs Do you kill on god's command?
^ Great song btw.
The Crusades were pretty much the same as any war in history: to expand strategic interests and power. Religion was nothing more than a justification and something to motivate the war effort, much like the freedom rhetoric of the 20th-21st centuries, which was even used by the Germans btw in WW2.
I could argue that the first three major crusades were for "noble" reasons. (the idea of just war didn't originate in the crusades however; it's older)
However, Crusades 4 - 18something or another were for material gain of the church the kings, the lords, and whoever else incited them.
Expansion of Christian powers in the new world was hardly a shining example either.
I mean, you might as well blame the terrans for starting the brood wars for their expanionist policies in the kopralu sector. Why single them out when both the Protoss and Zerg were expanding all over the sector as well?
On May 13 2012 08:24 Introvert wrote: Why oh why do I read these threads... falsehoods and vitriol abound.
Maybe instead of arguing about it here, everyone should go read some books on it. If you think that takes too much time than you shouldn't be discussing it in the first place. Obviously one book is not enough; all scientists and historians are human beings and have something called "bias".
Also, one should not mistake how people leading a religion do and what the religion teaches. People would be wrong to blame Christianity itself for Papal greed, as there is no line of doctrine endorsing any such thing. Again, people are imperfect and fallible.
Go read some books.
This. In addition, Catholic Christianity is an entirely different religion to Protestant Christianity. I doubt you'll find any Protestant pastors preaching about the Crusades in a good light for anyone involved.
Thank you my friend.
Jesus preached that we as Christians, as the church, should NOT engage in ANY form of violence. Is it not written "17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[d] says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”[e]
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. + Show Spoiler +
However, God has allowed the governments of this earth to "Punish evil and strike fear into evildoers". I guess that's why God tells us to submit to the governments - they are authorities put in place by God to punish evil (although most governments only do this partially.. look at the unjust wars America starts / the number of rapists that never get caught / rape-trials that are total farces). So christians are to submit to the government only so much as the government punishes evil and does it's job. If the government limits the spread of the gospel i.e. banning the bible, then I guess that's 200000% against God's will. We cannot submit to that particular law of banning the bible, so we continue to read and possess bibles (see Christians in Turkmenistan / early Communist China ).
As for Christians going to war? I say unless you are already enlisted don't fight in the war. We preach a gospel of peace, peace between men and peace between men and God. If Jesus wanted to wage an earthly war, He surely could have won over the ENTIRE earth within days. Not hard for God. God's war is spiritual - we are to put on the full armour of God that we have stand the spiritual attacks of Satan. "For my kingdom is not of this world" Amen to Jesus.
So then if you do fight in a war, so be it - we live in a broken world which often forces us into tough situation (i.e. does a christian turn the other cheek to a rapist who is raping your daughter in front of you ? I would like to. However I might just use my rugby training and nail him. I do not hope for the latter).
If the war was unjust/plain warmongering (i.e. your country starting a war for no reason / not seeking peace first etc), then SERIOUSLY don't fight. That actually would be sin to you. I am referring to the conduct of Christians who believe in the holy scriptures and the lordship of Christ. In regards to the crusades - overall the whole thing was totally wrong, for it's conception to the execution and the after effects. They butchered the Christians of the levant (some 30-50% of the populace under islamic rule at the time) and pillaged the christian peasants of the Byzantines. Sounds like some of those soldiers never read their bible (indeed, the bible was NOT taught to any but the nobility - who themselves were hypocrites anyhow).
So as a follower of Jesus Christ, I sincerely apologise for the wrongs we have done. In the name of Jesus we have butchered many. We have waged wars and even persecuted our own when they stood up for the truth. We condoned serfdom, slavery and other rubbish in the past. We have not been generous, nor taught the scriptures to the average joe. Yes - Christianity has acquired for itself a bad name and I can only say - I am sincerely sorry. The bible-believing churches of today are repenting of our ways. We are still hypocrites (for all people are sinful and even our "good works" are filthy rags before God). I hope you may accept this apology. In due time I hope you can recognise the genuine love that Christians have for the lost in this world. That you would look towards the Salvation army and the countless mission agencies who seek to bring joy to the poor and destitute in the world. That you would recognise genuine love in Christians that comes only from the transformation that is in Christ Jesus.
For "Wisdom is justified by her children". If a man claims to be Christian but lives a rubbish lifestyle. Then he is not living as he ought to. His faith is powerless and worthless. If a man claims to be Christian and lives a holy lifestyle of generosity, gentleness, boldness in preaching the gospel and genuine love for those around him - then his faith has been perfected in love. May all of you be blessed by the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen
Click on the spoiler if you wish to read one humble opinion from a broken man. I am saved by Jesus - that is all.
On May 13 2012 08:24 Introvert wrote: Why oh why do I read these threads... falsehoods and vitriol abound.
Maybe instead of arguing about it here, everyone should go read some books on it. If you think that takes too much time than you shouldn't be discussing it in the first place. Obviously one book is not enough; all scientists and historians are human beings and have something called "bias".
Also, one should not mistake how people leading a religion do and what the religion teaches. People would be wrong to blame Christianity itself for Papal greed, as there is no line of doctrine endorsing any such thing. Again, people are imperfect and fallible.
Go read some books.
This. In addition, Catholic Christianity is an entirely different religion to Protestant Christianity. I doubt you'll find any Protestant pastors preaching about the Crusades in a good light for anyone involved.
Thank you my friend.
Jesus preached that we as Christians, as the church, should NOT engage in ANY form of violence. Is it not written "17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[d] says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”[e]
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. + Show Spoiler +
However, God has allowed the governments of this earth to "Punish evil and strike fear into evildoers". I guess that's why God tells us to submit to the governments - they are authorities put in place by God to punish evil (although most governments only do this partially.. look at the unjust wars America starts / the number of rapists that never get caught / rape-trials that are total farces). So christians are to submit to the government only so much as the government punishes evil and does it's job. If the government limits the spread of the gospel i.e. banning the bible, then I guess that's 200000% against God's will. We cannot submit to that particular law of banning the bible, so we continue to read and possess bibles (see Christians in Turkmenistan / early Communist China ).
As for Christians going to war? I say unless you are already enlisted don't fight in the war. We preach a gospel of peace, peace between men and peace between men and God. If Jesus wanted to wage an earthly war, He surely could have won over the ENTIRE earth within days. Not hard for God. God's war is spiritual - we are to put on the full armour of God that we have stand the spiritual attacks of Satan. "For my kingdom is not of this world" Amen to Jesus.
So then if you do fight in a war, so be it - we live in a broken world which often forces us into tough situation (i.e. does a christian turn the other cheek to a rapist who is raping your daughter in front of you ? I would like to. However I might just use my rugby training and nail him. I do not hope for the latter).
If the war was unjust/plain warmongering (i.e. your country starting a war for no reason / not seeking peace first etc), then SERIOUSLY don't fight. That actually would be sin to you. I am referring to the conduct of Christians who believe in the holy scriptures and the lordship of Christ. In regards to the crusades - overall the whole thing was totally wrong, for it's conception to the execution and the after effects. They butchered the Christians of the levant (some 30-50% of the populace under islamic rule at the time) and pillaged the christian peasants of the Byzantines. Sounds like some of those soldiers never read their bible (indeed, the bible was NOT taught to any but the nobility - who themselves were hypocrites anyhow).
So as a follower of Jesus Christ, I sincerely apologise for the wrongs we have done. In the name of Jesus we have butchered many. We have waged wars and even persecuted our own when they stood up for the truth. We condoned serfdom, slavery and other rubbish in the past. We have not been generous, nor taught the scriptures to the average joe. Yes - Christianity has acquired for itself a bad name and I can only say - I am sincerely sorry. The bible-believing churches of today are repenting of our ways. We are still hypocrites (for all people are sinful and even our "good works" are filthy rags before God). I hope you may accept this apology. In due time I hope you can recognise the genuine love that Christians have for the lost in this world. That you would look towards the Salvation army and the countless mission agencies who seek to bring joy to the poor and destitute in the world. That you would recognise genuine love in Christians that comes only from the transformation that is in Christ Jesus.
For "Wisdom is justified by her children". If a man claims to be Christian but lives a rubbish lifestyle. Then he is not living as he ought to. His faith is powerless and worthless. If a man claims to be Christian and lives a holy lifestyle of generosity, gentleness, boldness in preaching the gospel and genuine love for those around him - then his faith has been perfected in love. May all of you be blessed by the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen
Click on the spoiler if you wish to read one humble opinion from a broken man. I am saved by Jesus - that is all.
Prepare to be roasted and raged at brave one. Most people now days hate and despise Christianity. They beleive science and logic cannot exist with religion. They will cuss you out and they are disgusted with religoin. They will use all caps to show their pure hate and how much their blood is boiling. They wish you were dead with all relgious followers and they probably would have killed Jesus themselves.
On May 13 2012 08:24 Introvert wrote: Why oh why do I read these threads... falsehoods and vitriol abound.
Maybe instead of arguing about it here, everyone should go read some books on it. If you think that takes too much time than you shouldn't be discussing it in the first place. Obviously one book is not enough; all scientists and historians are human beings and have something called "bias".
Also, one should not mistake how people leading a religion do and what the religion teaches. People would be wrong to blame Christianity itself for Papal greed, as there is no line of doctrine endorsing any such thing. Again, people are imperfect and fallible.
Go read some books.
This. In addition, Catholic Christianity is an entirely different religion to Protestant Christianity. I doubt you'll find any Protestant pastors preaching about the Crusades in a good light for anyone involved.
Thank you my friend.
Jesus preached that we as Christians, as the church, should NOT engage in ANY form of violence. Is it not written "17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[d] says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”[e]
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. + Show Spoiler +
However, God has allowed the governments of this earth to "Punish evil and strike fear into evildoers". I guess that's why God tells us to submit to the governments - they are authorities put in place by God to punish evil (although most governments only do this partially.. look at the unjust wars America starts / the number of rapists that never get caught / rape-trials that are total farces). So christians are to submit to the government only so much as the government punishes evil and does it's job. If the government limits the spread of the gospel i.e. banning the bible, then I guess that's 200000% against God's will. We cannot submit to that particular law of banning the bible, so we continue to read and possess bibles (see Christians in Turkmenistan / early Communist China ).
As for Christians going to war? I say unless you are already enlisted don't fight in the war. We preach a gospel of peace, peace between men and peace between men and God. If Jesus wanted to wage an earthly war, He surely could have won over the ENTIRE earth within days. Not hard for God. God's war is spiritual - we are to put on the full armour of God that we have stand the spiritual attacks of Satan. "For my kingdom is not of this world" Amen to Jesus.
So then if you do fight in a war, so be it - we live in a broken world which often forces us into tough situation (i.e. does a christian turn the other cheek to a rapist who is raping your daughter in front of you ? I would like to. However I might just use my rugby training and nail him. I do not hope for the latter).
If the war was unjust/plain warmongering (i.e. your country starting a war for no reason / not seeking peace first etc), then SERIOUSLY don't fight. That actually would be sin to you. I am referring to the conduct of Christians who believe in the holy scriptures and the lordship of Christ. In regards to the crusades - overall the whole thing was totally wrong, for it's conception to the execution and the after effects. They butchered the Christians of the levant (some 30-50% of the populace under islamic rule at the time) and pillaged the christian peasants of the Byzantines. Sounds like some of those soldiers never read their bible (indeed, the bible was NOT taught to any but the nobility - who themselves were hypocrites anyhow).
So as a follower of Jesus Christ, I sincerely apologise for the wrongs we have done. In the name of Jesus we have butchered many. We have waged wars and even persecuted our own when they stood up for the truth. We condoned serfdom, slavery and other rubbish in the past. We have not been generous, nor taught the scriptures to the average joe. Yes - Christianity has acquired for itself a bad name and I can only say - I am sincerely sorry. The bible-believing churches of today are repenting of our ways. We are still hypocrites (for all people are sinful and even our "good works" are filthy rags before God). I hope you may accept this apology. In due time I hope you can recognise the genuine love that Christians have for the lost in this world. That you would look towards the Salvation army and the countless mission agencies who seek to bring joy to the poor and destitute in the world. That you would recognise genuine love in Christians that comes only from the transformation that is in Christ Jesus.
For "Wisdom is justified by her children". If a man claims to be Christian but lives a rubbish lifestyle. Then he is not living as he ought to. His faith is powerless and worthless. If a man claims to be Christian and lives a holy lifestyle of generosity, gentleness, boldness in preaching the gospel and genuine love for those around him - then his faith has been perfected in love. May all of you be blessed by the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen
Click on the spoiler if you wish to read one humble opinion from a broken man. I am saved by Jesus - that is all.
Prepare to be roasted and raged at brave one. Most people now days hate and despise Christianity. They beleive science and logic cannot exist with religion. They will cuss you out and they are disgusted with religoin. They will use all caps to show their pure hate and how much their blood is boiling. They wish you were dead with all relgious followers and they probably would have killed Jesus themselves.
I don't think any one really ever rages at JesusOurSavior. He seems like a pretty nice guy, unless your post was sarcasm.
On May 13 2012 12:42 Angel_ wrote: I could argue that the first three major crusades were for "noble" reasons. (the idea of just war didn't originate in the crusades however; it's older)
However, Crusades 4 - 18something or another were for material gain of the church the kings, the lords, and whoever else incited them.
The Second Crusade was waged by the four holy kingdoms to expand their own power because they got greedy. It just failed miserably, resulting in 2 or 3 getting completely annihilated and the Kingdom of Jerusalem shrinking greatly.
EDIT: Well, in the East anyway. If I remember correctly, Portugal was retaken at this time from the Moors and some other success was had in the Iberian Peninsula.
The dominant culture(s) in Europe and the dominant culture(s) in the Middle East have been fighting to control the Mediterranean for ~3500 years, one particular phase of it isn't really worth getting so excited over. What Western Christendom and Muslims did to each other isn't any worse (or better either) than what the Romans and Carthaginians did to each other, or what both did to the Byzantines, or what Alexander did to Tyre, or for that matter in our modern age that we like to think of as more civilized, what the Turks did to the Armenians, or what the Nazis did to Jews and other assorted "inferiors," or the Russians did to kulaks and the bourgeoisie (petty or not). Going back 1000 years to score cheap points about contemporary disputes for either side is meaningless save in that it can have the effect of making violence more likely today. Too many Muslims in the Middle East are indoctrinated that the Crusaders wanted to destroy Islam and force Christianity on them and that the same thing is happening now, and xenophobic nationalists believe that Europe (and America) are under assault today as Europe was intermittently from ~700 - 1699 by Muslims. And both sides use too many of the arguments and accusations being thrown around in this thread.
On May 13 2012 08:24 Introvert wrote: Why oh why do I read these threads... falsehoods and vitriol abound.
Maybe instead of arguing about it here, everyone should go read some books on it. If you think that takes too much time than you shouldn't be discussing it in the first place. Obviously one book is not enough; all scientists and historians are human beings and have something called "bias".
Also, one should not mistake how people leading a religion do and what the religion teaches. People would be wrong to blame Christianity itself for Papal greed, as there is no line of doctrine endorsing any such thing. Again, people are imperfect and fallible.
Go read some books.
This. In addition, Catholic Christianity is an entirely different religion to Protestant Christianity. I doubt you'll find any Protestant pastors preaching about the Crusades in a good light for anyone involved.
Thank you my friend.
Jesus preached that we as Christians, as the church, should NOT engage in ANY form of violence. Is it not written "17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[d] says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”[e]
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. + Show Spoiler +
However, God has allowed the governments of this earth to "Punish evil and strike fear into evildoers". I guess that's why God tells us to submit to the governments - they are authorities put in place by God to punish evil (although most governments only do this partially.. look at the unjust wars America starts / the number of rapists that never get caught / rape-trials that are total farces). So christians are to submit to the government only so much as the government punishes evil and does it's job. If the government limits the spread of the gospel i.e. banning the bible, then I guess that's 200000% against God's will. We cannot submit to that particular law of banning the bible, so we continue to read and possess bibles (see Christians in Turkmenistan / early Communist China ).
As for Christians going to war? I say unless you are already enlisted don't fight in the war. We preach a gospel of peace, peace between men and peace between men and God. If Jesus wanted to wage an earthly war, He surely could have won over the ENTIRE earth within days. Not hard for God. God's war is spiritual - we are to put on the full armour of God that we have stand the spiritual attacks of Satan. "For my kingdom is not of this world" Amen to Jesus.
So then if you do fight in a war, so be it - we live in a broken world which often forces us into tough situation (i.e. does a christian turn the other cheek to a rapist who is raping your daughter in front of you ? I would like to. However I might just use my rugby training and nail him. I do not hope for the latter).
If the war was unjust/plain warmongering (i.e. your country starting a war for no reason / not seeking peace first etc), then SERIOUSLY don't fight. That actually would be sin to you. I am referring to the conduct of Christians who believe in the holy scriptures and the lordship of Christ. In regards to the crusades - overall the whole thing was totally wrong, for it's conception to the execution and the after effects. They butchered the Christians of the levant (some 30-50% of the populace under islamic rule at the time) and pillaged the christian peasants of the Byzantines. Sounds like some of those soldiers never read their bible (indeed, the bible was NOT taught to any but the nobility - who themselves were hypocrites anyhow).
So as a follower of Jesus Christ, I sincerely apologise for the wrongs we have done. In the name of Jesus we have butchered many. We have waged wars and even persecuted our own when they stood up for the truth. We condoned serfdom, slavery and other rubbish in the past. We have not been generous, nor taught the scriptures to the average joe. Yes - Christianity has acquired for itself a bad name and I can only say - I am sincerely sorry. The bible-believing churches of today are repenting of our ways. We are still hypocrites (for all people are sinful and even our "good works" are filthy rags before God). I hope you may accept this apology. In due time I hope you can recognise the genuine love that Christians have for the lost in this world. That you would look towards the Salvation army and the countless mission agencies who seek to bring joy to the poor and destitute in the world. That you would recognise genuine love in Christians that comes only from the transformation that is in Christ Jesus.
For "Wisdom is justified by her children". If a man claims to be Christian but lives a rubbish lifestyle. Then he is not living as he ought to. His faith is powerless and worthless. If a man claims to be Christian and lives a holy lifestyle of generosity, gentleness, boldness in preaching the gospel and genuine love for those around him - then his faith has been perfected in love. May all of you be blessed by the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen
Click on the spoiler if you wish to read one humble opinion from a broken man. I am saved by Jesus - that is all.
Even in a thread about wars that happened 700-1000 years ago there has to be at some point at least one throwaway America-bash. *sigh*
On May 13 2012 08:24 Introvert wrote: Why oh why do I read these threads... falsehoods and vitriol abound.
Maybe instead of arguing about it here, everyone should go read some books on it. If you think that takes too much time than you shouldn't be discussing it in the first place. Obviously one book is not enough; all scientists and historians are human beings and have something called "bias".
Also, one should not mistake how people leading a religion do and what the religion teaches. People would be wrong to blame Christianity itself for Papal greed, as there is no line of doctrine endorsing any such thing. Again, people are imperfect and fallible.
Go read some books.
This. In addition, Catholic Christianity is an entirely different religion to Protestant Christianity. I doubt you'll find any Protestant pastors preaching about the Crusades in a good light for anyone involved.
Thank you my friend.
Jesus preached that we as Christians, as the church, should NOT engage in ANY form of violence. Is it not written "17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[d] says the Lord. 20 On the contrary:
“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.”[e]
21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. + Show Spoiler +
However, God has allowed the governments of this earth to "Punish evil and strike fear into evildoers". I guess that's why God tells us to submit to the governments - they are authorities put in place by God to punish evil (although most governments only do this partially.. look at the unjust wars America starts / the number of rapists that never get caught / rape-trials that are total farces). So christians are to submit to the government only so much as the government punishes evil and does it's job. If the government limits the spread of the gospel i.e. banning the bible, then I guess that's 200000% against God's will. We cannot submit to that particular law of banning the bible, so we continue to read and possess bibles (see Christians in Turkmenistan / early Communist China ).
As for Christians going to war? I say unless you are already enlisted don't fight in the war. We preach a gospel of peace, peace between men and peace between men and God. If Jesus wanted to wage an earthly war, He surely could have won over the ENTIRE earth within days. Not hard for God. God's war is spiritual - we are to put on the full armour of God that we have stand the spiritual attacks of Satan. "For my kingdom is not of this world" Amen to Jesus.
So then if you do fight in a war, so be it - we live in a broken world which often forces us into tough situation (i.e. does a christian turn the other cheek to a rapist who is raping your daughter in front of you ? I would like to. However I might just use my rugby training and nail him. I do not hope for the latter).
If the war was unjust/plain warmongering (i.e. your country starting a war for no reason / not seeking peace first etc), then SERIOUSLY don't fight. That actually would be sin to you. I am referring to the conduct of Christians who believe in the holy scriptures and the lordship of Christ. In regards to the crusades - overall the whole thing was totally wrong, for it's conception to the execution and the after effects. They butchered the Christians of the levant (some 30-50% of the populace under islamic rule at the time) and pillaged the christian peasants of the Byzantines. Sounds like some of those soldiers never read their bible (indeed, the bible was NOT taught to any but the nobility - who themselves were hypocrites anyhow).
So as a follower of Jesus Christ, I sincerely apologise for the wrongs we have done. In the name of Jesus we have butchered many. We have waged wars and even persecuted our own when they stood up for the truth. We condoned serfdom, slavery and other rubbish in the past. We have not been generous, nor taught the scriptures to the average joe. Yes - Christianity has acquired for itself a bad name and I can only say - I am sincerely sorry. The bible-believing churches of today are repenting of our ways. We are still hypocrites (for all people are sinful and even our "good works" are filthy rags before God). I hope you may accept this apology. In due time I hope you can recognise the genuine love that Christians have for the lost in this world. That you would look towards the Salvation army and the countless mission agencies who seek to bring joy to the poor and destitute in the world. That you would recognise genuine love in Christians that comes only from the transformation that is in Christ Jesus.
For "Wisdom is justified by her children". If a man claims to be Christian but lives a rubbish lifestyle. Then he is not living as he ought to. His faith is powerless and worthless. If a man claims to be Christian and lives a holy lifestyle of generosity, gentleness, boldness in preaching the gospel and genuine love for those around him - then his faith has been perfected in love. May all of you be blessed by the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen
Click on the spoiler if you wish to read one humble opinion from a broken man. I am saved by Jesus - that is all.
Prepare to be roasted and raged at brave one. Most people now days hate and despise Christianity. They beleive science and logic cannot exist with religion. They will cuss you out and they are disgusted with religoin. They will use all caps to show their pure hate and how much their blood is boiling. They wish you were dead with all relgious followers and they probably would have killed Jesus themselves.
What. I have yet to meet any person who thinks like that. Most people without a religion just wish to be left alone. I don't care what you believe in, as long as you don't push it on me. I have no intention to kill anyone, be he jesus or not. I also doubt that a lot of people wish all religious people to be dead. People might wish the preachy ones to shut up, which is reasonable. The same works the other way around too, of course. Preachy atheists are similarly annoying as preachy christians. People don't hate christianity. They hate people telling them that they should become christians.
What. I have yet to meet any person who thinks like that. Most people without a religion just wish to be left alone. I don't care what you believe in, as long as you don't push it on me. I have no intention to kill anyone, be he jesus or not. I also doubt that a lot of people wish all religious people to be dead. People might wish the preachy ones to shut up, which is reasonable. The same works the other way around too, of course. Preachy atheists are similarly annoying as preachy christians. People don't hate christianity. They hate people telling them that they should become christians.
I can understand why people get all pissy whenever some aggressive jerk-off atheist or religious proselytizer starts riding their hobby horse but honestly the vast majority of both atheists and theists are not like that. Why would anyone get mad just by being told they should be Christian or atheist or whatever. Going out and converting people is a basic characteristic of any belief system political social religious whatever I'm not saying you specifically but people get way too offended about being proselytized at these days.
What. I have yet to meet any person who thinks like that. Most people without a religion just wish to be left alone. I don't care what you believe in, as long as you don't push it on me. I have no intention to kill anyone, be he jesus or not. I also doubt that a lot of people wish all religious people to be dead. People might wish the preachy ones to shut up, which is reasonable. The same works the other way around too, of course. Preachy atheists are similarly annoying as preachy christians. People don't hate christianity. They hate people telling them that they should become christians.
I can understand why people get all pissy whenever some aggressive jerk-off atheist or religious proselytizer starts riding their hobby horse but honestly the vast majority of both atheists and theists are not like that. Why would anyone get mad just by being told they should be Christian or atheist or whatever. Going out and converting people is a basic characteristic of any belief system political social religious whatever I'm not saying you specifically but people get way too offended about being proselytized at these days.
I think people hate the phone calls from politicians just as much as those annoying people who come up to you and ask, "have you heard the good news?" If it involves me going to hell it's probably not good news.
On May 13 2012 12:57 Zahir wrote: Not to mention what these noble Christian knights did to their fellow Christians in Byzantium on their way to the holy land.
First of, contrary to what has been said concerning the 4th crusade in this thread, there never had been any premeditated plan to do the Constantinople sacking and a lot among the Christian crusades were against it.
The crusaders were in desperate need of a fleet of warships and transports, thus they faced a dilemma, and refused to come back to home with shame.
They chose to do a little evil to serve a greater good. The ultimate goal never stoped being Jerusalem.
The end was disastrous, but people need to keep in mind that the Pape Innocent excommunicated the Crusaders the second the Crusaders chose to attack a Christian city (zara).
Dear OP, you seem to have a very one-sided point of view in your "historic" elaboration. The point with wars is that they always lead to injustice and suffering, and looking back at a period of 2 centuries+ of war and stating "but the others started" just makes me sad. Especially since they were religiously motivated (real politic interest were of course also involved) and both of the involved religions supposedly teach peace.
On May 13 2012 12:57 Zahir wrote: Not to mention what these noble Christian knights did to their fellow Christians in Byzantium on their way to the holy land.
First of, contrary to what has been said concerning the 4th crusade in this thread, there never had been any premeditated plan to do the Constantinople sacking and a lot among the Christian crusades were against it.
The crusaders were in desperate need of a fleet of warships and transports, thus they faced a dilemma, and refused to come back to home with shame.
They chose to do a little evil to serve a greater good. The ultimate goal never stoped being Jerusalem.
The end was disastrous, but people need to keep in mind that the Pape Innocent excommunicated the Crusaders the second the Crusaders chose to attack a Christian city (zara).
Did the Pope excommunicate the French lords slaughtering the manicheans "heretics" in the south of France? Nope, and that was a crusade.
I wonder why this thread isn't closed, the OP is a fallacious mix of false statements with a clear islamophobic bias (looking at "Islam" as an empire is the first indicator of this). If any of these points could be adressed there would be some form of debate, but sadly Siroko or Alextrasas or any of these wikipedia scholars has been unable to answer any of the remarks directed towards the blatant mistakes in their posts.
There rarely was a "christianity vs islam" situation (the siege of Vienna is an example but the fall of the Byzantine empire is actually a counter-example), there simply was, as pointed earlier, a struggle for the domination of the Mediterranean sea.
There was also no fight of "good vs evil" (seriously...), atrocities were committed everywhere by everyone. The simple presence of an army was almost a guarantee of looting and pillaging, and many regions lost a good chunk of their population simply too many soldiers stayed there too long. Remember that the 989 Peace of God was the first medieval movement that tried to temper the actions and behaviour of knights, and it took some time to reach every corner of every land. The year 1000 was particularly violent in Europe and lesser lords had absolute power in their lands. Small conflicts were very common and the whole continent was constantly at war. In the end, Europe was far more violent than muslim states, simply because there really wasn't any form of unity. For example, the king of France was weak, and even though he was theoretically the highest authority in his country, he had in fact little to no power when it came down to distant lands owned by ambitious bannermen. In contrast, the islamic world was camposed of much bigger states with a greater sphere of influence. Had the king of France had the power to control his own subjects, the situation of the country would've been different.
The OP is only 3 small sections with very little content?
The crusades were almost entirely not motivated by religion but used religion to rally for the true causes.
Islam was spreading rapidly across the World and was becoming a threat to Europe, but this is nothing different than how Christianity spread also (for the most part).
A lot of the crusades were fragmented and poorly organized. Some of which even completely changed their purpose mid-crusade.
The point is, the crusades are very complicated and cover a wide range of time. They can't be simplified like the OP tries to do. And, to be honest, the OP comes off very Christian biased.
It's hard enough to get history right in the last century. When we are talking about events happening thousand years ago we really should take a humble approach when trying to lecture others and it's not something that can be summized into one A4 page.
On May 13 2012 12:57 Zahir wrote: Not to mention what these noble Christian knights did to their fellow Christians in Byzantium on their way to the holy land.
First of, contrary to what has been said concerning the 4th crusade in this thread, there never had been any premeditated plan to do the Constantinople sacking and a lot among the Christian crusades were against it.
The crusaders were in desperate need of a fleet of warships and transports, thus they faced a dilemma, and refused to come back to home with shame.
They chose to do a little evil to serve a greater good. The ultimate goal never stoped being Jerusalem.
The end was disastrous, but people need to keep in mind that the Pape Innocent excommunicated the Crusaders the second the Crusaders chose to attack a Christian city (zara).
Sack of Constantinople was a little evil for greater good ? Your morality seems to really come from middle ages if you really believe that. Lets murder thoudands (at the least) so we can reclaim worthless peace of land that never belonged to us. That seems like really something that can be easily justified. Everything not to go back in shame.
On May 13 2012 12:57 Zahir wrote: Not to mention what these noble Christian knights did to their fellow Christians in Byzantium on their way to the holy land.
First of, contrary to what has been said concerning the 4th crusade in this thread, there never had been any premeditated plan to do the Constantinople sacking and a lot among the Christian crusades were against it.
The crusaders were in desperate need of a fleet of warships and transports, thus they faced a dilemma, and refused to come back to home with shame.
They chose to do a little evil to serve a greater good. The ultimate goal never stoped being Jerusalem.
The end was disastrous, but people need to keep in mind that the Pape Innocent excommunicated the Crusaders the second the Crusaders chose to attack a Christian city (zara).
I don't understand when your supposed "greater good" happens? When the crusaders reached Palestine and invaded the area, looting and pillaging?
On May 13 2012 20:54 gruff wrote: It's hard enough to get history right in the last century. When we are talking about events happening thousand years ago we really should take a humble approach when trying to lecture others and it's not something that can be summized into one A4 page.
Pretty much this. History is always far more complicated than you can explain in a forum or even in a textbook or history class. There are always severe simplifications and generalizations.
The really scary thing to me is that people apparently are partisan for/against some group of people who lived thousands of years ago. I guess this is caused by all the "religion kills people" militant atheists. If you are partisan about history then you will never have a clear view of any historical event.
On May 13 2012 13:51 MerdaPura wrote: No comments on the Cutie Mark Crusaders?
I don't always laugh irl, but when I do it's at a MLP reference in a crusades thread.
Seriously though, this thread has gotten way out of hand, especially the "Woe us poor Christian souls." mentality.
The OP is completely broken, it tries to find an answer to whether or not the Crusades where morally a good thing, which to me, like trying to justify any aggressive war is an incredibly sick thing to do. The entire question whether or not they where morally justifiable is completely irrelevant, the question is only relevant to people with a invested interest, I.E. Christians and then tries to make an event a thousand years ago conform to modern day morals, which, let me tell you, it never will.
To actually answer the OP though, as a form of excersice, let's first try to define what a just war is, is it the belief of the leader? The belief of his army? His adherence to scripture? Adhering to the morality of those days? Or to ours?
I can tell you that any leader instigating a war usually believes they are morally justified, the human mind is a very bendable thing, finding an excuse for war isn't that hard, and leaders have always found one if they even bothered enough to have one, and projecting your own belief on your soldiers is quite easy if done by charismatic leaders. To summize, belief is just a measure of how good you are at manipulating your own or other peoples minds.
Scripture, this one should be very easy, due to Jesus rather pacifist stance when it came to most things I think we can easily conclude that Jesus would despise any war, be it waged in his name or done without warped logic like that.
Ancient morality, as you might know morals have changed drastically, mostly for the better, to our European and American minds the sheer amounts of death and suffering associated with medieval life are almost unfathomable, but the people who lived then needed ways to cope, death was swift and could come at any time, I belief this drastically changes how you deal with that of others. Practically all wars where morally justifiable in those days because morals where primitive undeveloped concepts only associated with religion, remember, Europe had lost most of it's Greek philosophical heritage at this point.
Modern day, the Crusades are impossible to justify, current day morality does not allow for a religious war, instigated "because god told us to", the conflict was incredibly complex. with blows going back and forth even before the crusade started, what would be the morally justifiable choice here is trying to do all you can to restore peace for the sake of peace, a somewhat alien concept to most medieval rulers, there will always be reasons that piss off a ruler, be it a problematic trade agreement or the destruction of a holy relic, turning that conflict into a war though has according to our neo-morality always been a bad thing.
No war ever has been morally justified, nor will it ever, it won't breed anything but more war, stop trying to morally justify one because these medieval idiots had the same religion as you do, people, and more importantly religious people, have always tried to change history to make them look more glorified, the blatant ignoring of facts by the OP and many of his fellow believers is just sickening, the only analogies I can draw are the Chinese with their refusal to believe anything nasty happened during the last 100 years or many Islamic scholars that refuse to acknowledge any scientific insights made, it's good to know America has it's own Christian contingent of history rewriters these days.
And OP, please learn what a discussion is, if I bring up facts destroying your arguments you're supposed to give a rebuttal, not tell me I am not interested in discussing (seriously, I still don't understand how that made any sense in your diluted mind), if you want to make a thread about a semi controversial subject, make sure you actually know jack shit about said subject.
And if you really wanted to know whether or not the Crusades where justified, just ask your best bud God, I'm sure he can give you an answer and you won't have to bother us with dumb questions only relevant for religious people who feel they need to justify the actions of their co-believers a thousand years ago.
Edit: As a side note, the peacefulness and technological level of the Muslim states in those days is often overplayed, these scientific insights where usually only relevant to the ancient cities of Roman learning, Alexandria, Cairo, Constantinople, Aleppo, Damascus, etc, outside of these centres Muslims and Christians where roughly on the same level, not to mention that when dealing with Islamic history things are even harder to verify then with the dealings in Europe because where in Europe the bigger happenings where all recorded by multiple historic writers, for different languages and countries, this was far less necessary in the Muslim world, a Caliph ruling over north Africa is going to care far less over a little revolt in Tunisia then a Scottish King having to violently supress a revolt in Gowrie.
On May 13 2012 20:54 gruff wrote: It's hard enough to get history right in the last century. When we are talking about events happening thousand years ago we really should take a humble approach when trying to lecture others and it's not something that can be summized into one A4 page.
Pretty much this. History is always far more complicated than you can explain in a forum or even in a textbook or history class. There are always severe simplifications and generalizations.
The really scary thing to me is that people apparently are partisan for/against some group of people who lived thousands of years ago. I guess this is caused by all the "religion kills people" militant atheists. If you are partisan about history then you will never have a clear view of any historical event.
So, like, what are you even saying. "History is far more complicated than you can explain in a forum" so like let's not discuss history? What's your view on the crusaders?
I think it's more a reflection on the level this discussion has evolved into, people are trying to discuss whether or not the Crusades where a "good" thing, which is a completely empty concept because we have practically no parameters which we can apply on a historical situation like this, and this fact only becomes appearant if you read more about it then the couple of pages on Wikipedia, and from the OP's terrible analysis I'm wondering if he even bothered to finish reading that.
What I feel many people here want to turn this discussion into is about how appearantly Christianity is being vilified, an interesting subject but completely unrelated to the Crusades, as an practical Agnostic/Atheist who believes in morality for the sake of itself and our humanity I believe humans kill humans, if there wouldn't have been Crusades people would have thought up another reason to kill other people, I think China and Russia prove pretty well that the absence of religion does not mean the absence of war. It's just an easy rationalization to justify the extremely strong human sentiment of increasing power. If you want to make a thread about the vilification of Christianity recently do so, dragging the crusades into that discussion is just pointless and will only confuse matters.
Only if we seperate the question of the validity of Christianity from this discussion (I believe OP's main reason for this thread is validating his own belief) and with that the validity of the Crusades, will we be able to have a meaningful discussion about the period in history.
What a strange OP! I'm impressed at some of the more intelligent and sourced comments here, where people make an arguement and back it up with 'evidence', whether the source is biased or not. If some of you don't mind, I would like to slightly derail the discussion and pose the question, When was the end of the "Islamic Golden Age" and why did it occur? Wiki link The Wikipedia link is vague at best and seeing as some of you actually have knowledge and an interest in history I would be happy to hear what you think!
On May 13 2012 20:54 gruff wrote: It's hard enough to get history right in the last century. When we are talking about events happening thousand years ago we really should take a humble approach when trying to lecture others and it's not something that can be summized into one A4 page.
Pretty much this. History is always far more complicated than you can explain in a forum or even in a textbook or history class. There are always severe simplifications and generalizations.
The really scary thing to me is that people apparently are partisan for/against some group of people who lived thousands of years ago. I guess this is caused by all the "religion kills people" militant atheists. If you are partisan about history then you will never have a clear view of any historical event.
The thread was started not by a 'militant atheist', but by a what appears to be a christian trying to defend his faith based on historical events centuries ago. There's militant atheists for sure, especially on the internet, but there's plenty of militant believers too, both sides have fundamentalists trying to twist history to fit into their worldview. The OP is one of them.
What happened over 500 years ago has no reflection on the way people currently experience a certain religion.
On May 14 2012 02:25 ChaZzza wrote: What a strange OP! I'm impressed at some of the more intelligent and sourced comments here, where people make an arguement and back it up with 'evidence', whether the source is biased or not. If some of you don't mind, I would like to slightly derail the discussion and pose the question, When was the end of the "Islamic Golden Age" and why did it occur? Wiki link The Wikipedia link is vague at best and seeing as some of you actually have knowledge and an interest in history I would be happy to hear what you think!
There are many reasons for that, religious conservatism due to the Sunni/Shiite schism, infighting, incompetent rulers, but the main one, Mongols.
As someone who is a devout Christian (Protestant) I can say that I do not care what banner was used during the Crusades; it was wrong. The Papacy in those days had a habbit of killing people to keep and maintain power. The Roman Catholic Church, and their their non-Biblican doctrines, should not be looked at as orthodox Christianity. No offense to those who are practicing Roman Catholics, I just detest your leadership and their history.
On May 14 2012 02:38 ImAbstracT wrote: As someone who is a devout Christian (Protestant) I can say that I do not care what banner was used during the Crusades; it was wrong. The Papacy in those days had a habbit of killing people to keep and maintain power. The Roman Catholic Church, and their their non-Biblican doctrines, should not be looked at as orthodox Christianity. No offense to those who are practicing Roman Catholics, I just detest your leadership and their history.
The problem is, most people try to judge histrory from todays perspective. Back then, when land&pesants were property, "state" was nothing more than monarchs personal property, things were just different. Not right, not wrong, but different.
Things just happened, attempts to paint them in certain colour are always made to get some sort of advantage today.
On May 14 2012 02:38 ImAbstracT wrote: As someone who is a devout Christian (Protestant) I can say that I do not care what banner was used during the Crusades; it was wrong. The Papacy in those days had a habbit of killing people to keep and maintain power. The Roman Catholic Church, and their their non-Biblican doctrines, should not be looked at as orthodox Christianity. No offense to those who are practicing Roman Catholics, I just detest your leadership and their history.
The crusades are an interesting time in history to study. Leaders using "God wills it" as a casus belli to conquer and colonize what states instead do in the name of democracy or ideology today. It's just words from politicians/kings that wish to have more power and money.
I'd say the golden age of Islam was when the Mongols was the biggest, didn't they embrace Islam? So I'd say 1300, Ottoman empire and golden horde was huge, also timurid empire and later mughal were successfull. Problem was the countries resisted modernization and fell behind the west. Fighting among and inside the big Muslim countries also was a big factor for their decline. It has to do with their tribal heritage I guess, even today tribes are important for example in Libya.
A couple of people have said that we should read books instead of Wikipedia, but then neglected to actually suggest any well-respected reading material. I'm actually interested in learning more about the topic, please help me out! All due respect to the people debating in this thread, but I would like to read up on some more respected sources. The Crusades have always been an interesting topic to me, but it's such a far-reaching span of time and place that I don't really know where to begin. So far I've seen these suggestions:
The Crusade through Arab Eyes The Memoirs of Usama ibn Munqidh This Youtube video
Are there any other well-known somewhat entertaining historical books that encompass a good amount of the crusades?
On May 14 2012 03:13 Node wrote: A couple of people have said that we should read books instead of Wikipedia, but then neglected to actually suggest any well-respected reading material. I'm actually interested in learning more about the topic, please help me out! All due respect to the people debating in this thread, but I would like to read up on some more respected sources. The Crusades have always been an interesting topic to me, but it's such a far-reaching span of time and place that I don't really know where to begin. So far I've seen these suggestions:
The Crusade through Arab Eyes The Memoirs of Usama ibn Munqidh
Are there any other well-known somewhat entertaining historical books that encompass a good amount of the crusades?
Honestly, primary arab primary sources and histories of the Crusade are really, really bad. There are occasional stories or statements that appear to be factual, but the overwhelming majority of it is hogwash. They're extremely interesting to read in order to gain some anecdotes (true or not) and other impressions that the Crusaders made on the Moslims. If that's the type of reading you like, Ibn Al-Athir's The Perfect History is, at the least, an entertaining read.
While less "entertaining", if you want a solid overview of the crusades that is very readable I'd suggest Madden's The New Concise History of the Crusades.
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
This shouldnt be allowed on TL, end of story. We're talking massacres of civilian populations, and this fucking idiot (who I already saw promoting fascists ideas on the 2012 French Presidential thread) claims that it is RESISTANCE. This is just some random racist nerd, who got slapped by an arab when he was 12 and never accepted it, ever since he's even trying to change fucking history to back up his senseless war against Islam and arabs. Seriously, dont you have something else to do in your shitty life than going on an international Starcraft forum promoting your xenophobic ideas? This guy even went on Breivik massacre's thread and tried to argue that his ideas were good, that Islam doesnt belong in Europe, and that it will eventually cause a civil war here? I mean, you guys ban troll alright, but this is just neo-trolling, let this dumb kid open threads like that he'll soon deny Africa's colonization...
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
This shouldnt be allowed on TL, end of story. We're talking massacres of civilian populations, and this fucking idiot (who I already saw promoting fascists ideas on the 2012 French Presidential thread) claims that it is RESISTANCE. This is just some random racist nerd, who got slapped by an arab when he was 12 and never accepted it, ever since he's even trying to change fucking history to back up his senseless war against Islam and arabs. Seriously, dont you have something else to do in your shitty life than going on an international Starcraft forum promoting your xenophobic ideas? This guy even went on Breivik massacre's thread and tried to argue that his ideas were good, that Islam doesnt belong in Europe, and that it will eventually cause a civil war here? I mean, you guys ban troll alright, but this is just neo-trolling, let this dumb kid open threads like that he'll soon deny Africa's colonization...
His statement, while an opinion, is not entirely invalid. It sounds more insulting than it is, but given that the start of the Crusades can be pointed to Muslim Expansion into Byzantium territory and their request for aid to the Pope and even centuries later in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries aggression can still be seen easily by the Ottoman Turk's movement into Eastern Europe. There are several modern historians (whose names escape me at the moment, but if I had to I could dig through old notes to find) who agree with SiroKO's interpretation of events.
I'm not one of them, but I understand its reasoning.
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
This shouldnt be allowed on TL, end of story. We're talking massacres of civilian populations, and this fucking idiot (who I already saw promoting fascists ideas on the 2012 French Presidential thread) claims that it is RESISTANCE. This is just some random racist nerd, who got slapped by an arab when he was 12 and never accepted it, ever since he's even trying to change fucking history to back up his senseless war against Islam and arabs. Seriously, dont you have something else to do in your shitty life than going on an international Starcraft forum promoting your xenophobic ideas? This guy even went on Breivik massacre's thread and tried to argue that his ideas were good, that Islam doesnt belong in Europe, and that it will eventually cause a civil war here? I mean, you guys ban troll alright, but this is just neo-trolling, let this dumb kid open threads like that he'll soon deny Africa's colonization...
Slapped by an arab when he was a kid, marine le pen <=> fascists, racist, xenophobic, Breivik, dumb, Africa's colonization.
You've got everything right, except for the Gaz Chambers and that nazi thing.
You can't be a serious anti-racist and forget to call nazi those whom you disagre with. That neo-troll thing was good though, but was that really enough ?
I'm sorry but this seems far too biased and without any source or documentation. It appears that the OP is just trying to bring up a historical event and tie it in with our contemporary world today.
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
This shouldnt be allowed on TL, end of story. We're talking massacres of civilian populations, and this fucking idiot (who I already saw promoting fascists ideas on the 2012 French Presidential thread) claims that it is RESISTANCE. This is just some random racist nerd, who got slapped by an arab when he was 12 and never accepted it, ever since he's even trying to change fucking history to back up his senseless war against Islam and arabs. Seriously, dont you have something else to do in your shitty life than going on an international Starcraft forum promoting your xenophobic ideas? This guy even went on Breivik massacre's thread and tried to argue that his ideas were good, that Islam doesnt belong in Europe, and that it will eventually cause a civil war here? I mean, you guys ban troll alright, but this is just neo-trolling, let this dumb kid open threads like that he'll soon deny Africa's colonization...
His statement, while an opinion, is not entirely invalid. It sounds more insulting than it is, but given that the start of the Crusades can be pointed to Muslim Expansion into Byzantium territory and their request for aid to the Pope and even centuries later in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries aggression can still be seen easily by the Ottoman Turk's movement into Eastern Europe. There are several modern historians (whose names escape me at the moment, but if I had to I could dig through old notes to find) who agree with SiroKO's interpretation of events.
I'm not one of them, but I understand its reasoning.
Please do post said papers, studies or historians, because Siroko's statements have been awefully vain until now.
How is it that the Crusade was led to the east, when more than half of the Iberian peninsula was occupied by Almoravids? How is it that, if the Crusade was supposed to repel the Turk invader, it didn't advance in Turkish territory and chose to fight the Fatimids instead? How is it that armies supposed to fight infidels lost half of their troops attacking and sieging each other? How is it that a simple request for troops - not a cry for help, the Ottoman empire was weakened and the Byzantine army simply lacked in numbers and experience - can be interpreted as a call to "christian resistance"? How can we consider christian territories "united" when Alexis's predecessor had been excommunicated, and when other great threats were the Normans and various uprisings in Greece, all believers in Jesus' divine status?
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
This shouldnt be allowed on TL, end of story. We're talking massacres of civilian populations, and this fucking idiot (who I already saw promoting fascists ideas on the 2012 French Presidential thread) claims that it is RESISTANCE. This is just some random racist nerd, who got slapped by an arab when he was 12 and never accepted it, ever since he's even trying to change fucking history to back up his senseless war against Islam and arabs. Seriously, dont you have something else to do in your shitty life than going on an international Starcraft forum promoting your xenophobic ideas? This guy even went on Breivik massacre's thread and tried to argue that his ideas were good, that Islam doesnt belong in Europe, and that it will eventually cause a civil war here? I mean, you guys ban troll alright, but this is just neo-trolling, let this dumb kid open threads like that he'll soon deny Africa's colonization...
His statement, while an opinion, is not entirely invalid. It sounds more insulting than it is, but given that the start of the Crusades can be pointed to Muslim Expansion into Byzantium territory and their request for aid to the Pope and even centuries later in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries aggression can still be seen easily by the Ottoman Turk's movement into Eastern Europe. There are several modern historians (whose names escape me at the moment, but if I had to I could dig through old notes to find) who agree with SiroKO's interpretation of events.
I'm not one of them, but I understand its reasoning.
Please do post said papers, studies or historians, because Siroko's statements have been awefully vain until now.
How is it that the Crusade was led to the east, when more than half of the Iberian peninsula was occupied by Almoravids? How is it that, if the Crusade was supposed to repel the Turk invader, it didn't advance in Turkish territory and chose to fight the Fatimids instead? How is it that armies supposed to fight infidels lost half of their troops attacking and sieging each other? How is it that a simple request for troops - not a cry for help, the Ottoman empire was weakened and the Byzantine army simply lacked in numbers and experience - can be interpreted as a call to "christian resistance"? How can we consider christian territories "united" when Alexis's predecessor had been excommunicated, and when other great threats were the Normans and various uprisings in Greece, all believers in Jesus' divine status?
I'll get around to other historians later when I have additional time for digging.
As to your 2nd question: The Europeans and the Arabs (I'm using the term extremely loosely here), had the same problem: Neither really understood the structure and organization of their enemy. The Europeans seldom understood the internal workings of their enemies, and likewise the arabs to the Europeans. The Crusades had many different goals, and I wont pretend to suggest that all of them were purely for defensive purposes. However, to many of the Crusaders at the time, that is how they viewed the events. What I mean is, both groups saw their enemies as 1 giant nation w/ unified rulers and a general consensus. This is far from the case. Also, while Spain wasn't a primary goal, it was still a goal to recapture and they made some attempts such as the Siege of Lisbon during the 2nd crusade.
The thing about Europeans attacking eachother is that you have to understand the political workings. Countries didn't really exist the way we think of them today. Many times, as the Crusading armies passed through, there were rivals or allies despite being the same "country." Also, supplies were limited and some local rulers either hated the crusaders are wanted to gouge them w/ expensive prices. When you're leading thousands of men who are hungry, it is hard to simply keep walking if a city closes its gates to you. Similarly, the groups that went on the Crusades were usually under the control of different leaders; sometimes they had different goals and ideas.
The call for help/aid is obviously tricky to talk about as no actual document is ever found that says exactly what was said in it. It is generally accepted that it was more of a request for troops, however, the Pope saw it as an opportunity to not only beat back the evil Muslims, but also in some vain attempt to convert the Byzantine back to Roman Catholicism. There was still no "unified" Catholicism, but they still considered those in the Byzantine as more like lost or confused distant relatives, whereas the Muslims were anything but. The Ottomans didn't exist at the time of the first Crusade (or maybe the "existed", but weren't really anything resembling a force).
You ask a lot of the same questions that I do as well, it should be noted. I don't agree with the theory that essentially it was a "defensive" war from the side of the Christians. Certainly there were some Crusading leaders who believed that the best defense was a good offense. Some saw it as a power grab. Some were extremely pious and believed it was God's will to go about on these Crusades, and even if it wasn't, getting out of purgatory seems like a pretty sweet deal.
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
This shouldnt be allowed on TL, end of story. We're talking massacres of civilian populations, and this fucking idiot (who I already saw promoting fascists ideas on the 2012 French Presidential thread) claims that it is RESISTANCE. This is just some random racist nerd, who got slapped by an arab when he was 12 and never accepted it, ever since he's even trying to change fucking history to back up his senseless war against Islam and arabs. Seriously, dont you have something else to do in your shitty life than going on an international Starcraft forum promoting your xenophobic ideas? This guy even went on Breivik massacre's thread and tried to argue that his ideas were good, that Islam doesnt belong in Europe, and that it will eventually cause a civil war here? I mean, you guys ban troll alright, but this is just neo-trolling, let this dumb kid open threads like that he'll soon deny Africa's colonization...
Well obviously Islam doesn't belong in Europe but neither does Christianity or any other religion.
Religion is a unfortunate relic of the past and we should leave it there.
On May 13 2012 20:54 gruff wrote: It's hard enough to get history right in the last century. When we are talking about events happening thousand years ago we really should take a humble approach when trying to lecture others and it's not something that can be summized into one A4 page.
Pretty much this. History is always far more complicated than you can explain in a forum or even in a textbook or history class. There are always severe simplifications and generalizations.
The really scary thing to me is that people apparently are partisan for/against some group of people who lived thousands of years ago. I guess this is caused by all the "religion kills people" militant atheists. If you are partisan about history then you will never have a clear view of any historical event.
agreed, although it is equally cause by Christian apologists.
On May 14 2012 03:13 Node wrote: A couple of people have said that we should read books instead of Wikipedia, but then neglected to actually suggest any well-respected reading material. I'm actually interested in learning more about the topic, please help me out! All due respect to the people debating in this thread, but I would like to read up on some more respected sources. The Crusades have always been an interesting topic to me, but it's such a far-reaching span of time and place that I don't really know where to begin. So far I've seen these suggestions:
The Crusade through Arab Eyes The Memoirs of Usama ibn Munqidh This Youtube video
Are there any other well-known somewhat entertaining historical books that encompass a good amount of the crusades?
Usama ibn Munqidh's memoirs are actually fascinating. I took a class on the Crusades in college and that was one of the books we were assigned. It's a really, really interesting Muslim perspective on the Crusades and the Latin inhabitants of the Holy Land. Plus if you're actually up on your comparative religions there are some absolutely hilarious anecdotes.
To add to the list there are also some excellent "Frankish" accounts of the crusades. The Gesta Francorum is probably the best account of the First Crusade. It's written by an anonymous knight on crusade (but historians think it was written by a knight in the service of Bohemond of Taranto) and is a great first-person narrative of the Crusade. There are also accounts of the first crusade written by, among others, Raymond d'Aguilers and Fulcher of Chartres. All of these accounts, of course, need to be taken with a grain of salt but are great glimpses into the way the contemporary European viewed the Crusades. There is also the Historia of Willam of Tyre which is an account of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from before its founding until his death sometime in the 1180's.
For the Fourth Crusade there is the Chronicle of Goffrey de Villehardouin, who was one of the leaders of the 4th crusade that sacked Constantinople. This one is especially interesting because there is a significant element of guild and attempted exoneration of Goffrey's writing trying to excuse the actions of the crusade.
There is also the Life of St. Louis by Jean de Joinville which covers the 7th and 8th Crusades. Jean was a close friend of Louis IX and was on the 7th crusade with him so it's a first person account of the 7th crusade. He didn't go on the 8th crusade so i'ts a second-hand account of that particular crusade.
For contemporary or semi-contemporary perspectives on the Crusade there is Steven Runciman's History of the Crusades, although now it is somewhat dated. For a more modern book that is a great overview of the Crusades I suggest God's War: A New History of the Crusades by Christopher Tyerman.
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
This shouldnt be allowed on TL, end of story. We're talking massacres of civilian populations, and this fucking idiot (who I already saw promoting fascists ideas on the 2012 French Presidential thread) claims that it is RESISTANCE. This is just some random racist nerd, who got slapped by an arab when he was 12 and never accepted it, ever since he's even trying to change fucking history to back up his senseless war against Islam and arabs. Seriously, dont you have something else to do in your shitty life than going on an international Starcraft forum promoting your xenophobic ideas? This guy even went on Breivik massacre's thread and tried to argue that his ideas were good, that Islam doesnt belong in Europe, and that it will eventually cause a civil war here? I mean, you guys ban troll alright, but this is just neo-trolling, let this dumb kid open threads like that he'll soon deny Africa's colonization...
Well obviously Islam doesn't belong in Europe but neither does Christianity or any other religion.
Religion is a unfortunate relic of the past and we should leave it there.
Bigotry against religion - the only bigotry acceptable in our tolerant world.
I prefer to learn history through authors who have extensively and throughly studied it, not through TL posters with no declared qualification whatsoever. So, OP, how about giving us some reading references you used, so we can find out for ourselves? What's the Hobsbawn/Rene Remond equivalent for that time period?
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
This shouldnt be allowed on TL, end of story. We're talking massacres of civilian populations, and this fucking idiot (who I already saw promoting fascists ideas on the 2012 French Presidential thread) claims that it is RESISTANCE. This is just some random racist nerd, who got slapped by an arab when he was 12 and never accepted it, ever since he's even trying to change fucking history to back up his senseless war against Islam and arabs. Seriously, dont you have something else to do in your shitty life than going on an international Starcraft forum promoting your xenophobic ideas? This guy even went on Breivik massacre's thread and tried to argue that his ideas were good, that Islam doesnt belong in Europe, and that it will eventually cause a civil war here? I mean, you guys ban troll alright, but this is just neo-trolling, let this dumb kid open threads like that he'll soon deny Africa's colonization...
Look at the Turks and their expansion to Balkans, Mongol invasion to Russia, Islamic expansion to India,
Yes, resistance.
And before you ask, Christians were expanding pretty much everywhere when they cold. That is how religion always worked.
The Crusades weren't only because of Muslim expansionism; Sure that was a factor, the Muslims were expanding at this point in history, but also there were other factors.
The first crusade happened because the Muslim king had taken over Jerusalem and was persecuting Christians there. The first crusade was about taking back Jerusalem.
The second crusade was a fail where the Christians lost Jerusalem to the Muslims.
The third crusade was triggered by the execution of the previous king of Jerusalem.
So, while Muslims were expanding, I don't think it's accurate to say that expansionism was the only factor.
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
This shouldnt be allowed on TL, end of story. We're talking massacres of civilian populations, and this fucking idiot (who I already saw promoting fascists ideas on the 2012 French Presidential thread) claims that it is RESISTANCE. This is just some random racist nerd, who got slapped by an arab when he was 12 and never accepted it, ever since he's even trying to change fucking history to back up his senseless war against Islam and arabs. Seriously, dont you have something else to do in your shitty life than going on an international Starcraft forum promoting your xenophobic ideas? This guy even went on Breivik massacre's thread and tried to argue that his ideas were good, that Islam doesnt belong in Europe, and that it will eventually cause a civil war here? I mean, you guys ban troll alright, but this is just neo-trolling, let this dumb kid open threads like that he'll soon deny Africa's colonization...
Look at the Turks and their expansion to Balkans, Mongol invasion to Russia, Islamic expansion to India,
Yes, resistance.
And before you ask, Christians were expanding pretty much everywhere when they cold. That is how religion always worked.
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
This shouldnt be allowed on TL, end of story. We're talking massacres of civilian populations, and this fucking idiot (who I already saw promoting fascists ideas on the 2012 French Presidential thread) claims that it is RESISTANCE. This is just some random racist nerd, who got slapped by an arab when he was 12 and never accepted it, ever since he's even trying to change fucking history to back up his senseless war against Islam and arabs. Seriously, dont you have something else to do in your shitty life than going on an international Starcraft forum promoting your xenophobic ideas? This guy even went on Breivik massacre's thread and tried to argue that his ideas were good, that Islam doesnt belong in Europe, and that it will eventually cause a civil war here? I mean, you guys ban troll alright, but this is just neo-trolling, let this dumb kid open threads like that he'll soon deny Africa's colonization...
Well obviously Islam doesn't belong in Europe but neither does Christianity or any other religion.
Religion is a unfortunate relic of the past and we should leave it there.
Bigotry against religion - the only bigotry acceptable in our tolerant world.
According to many Churches in the USA, bigotry against homosexuals is still pretty acceptable to them. I guess though that Christians don't fall under the category of being 'tolerant'.
wait so what this post actually means that it wasnt just chiristianitys fault and that it is the idea of religion to begin with that led to these atrocities?
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
This shouldnt be allowed on TL, end of story. We're talking massacres of civilian populations, and this fucking idiot (who I already saw promoting fascists ideas on the 2012 French Presidential thread) claims that it is RESISTANCE. This is just some random racist nerd, who got slapped by an arab when he was 12 and never accepted it, ever since he's even trying to change fucking history to back up his senseless war against Islam and arabs. Seriously, dont you have something else to do in your shitty life than going on an international Starcraft forum promoting your xenophobic ideas? This guy even went on Breivik massacre's thread and tried to argue that his ideas were good, that Islam doesnt belong in Europe, and that it will eventually cause a civil war here? I mean, you guys ban troll alright, but this is just neo-trolling, let this dumb kid open threads like that he'll soon deny Africa's colonization...
Look at the Turks and their expansion to Balkans, Mongol invasion to Russia, Islamic expansion to India,
Yes, resistance.
And before you ask, Christians were expanding pretty much everywhere when they cold. That is how religion always worked.
On May 14 2012 17:41 CptCutter wrote: wait so what this post actually means that it wasnt just chiristianitys fault and that it is the idea of religion to begin with that led to these atrocities?
Just look at ANY religion. Does any say that you should treat equally and respect persons, that doesn`t share your religious beliefs? Nope, any religion implies that it is the only right way, and any other is wrong.
Why is this thread still in general? Why is it even opened? Seems to break a ton of TL rules. The OP has already been completely destroyed by intelligent people in the thread and has evaded their arguments for the whole topic... It just seems like dumb racism now, get it closed or moved.
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
This shouldnt be allowed on TL, end of story. We're talking massacres of civilian populations, and this fucking idiot (who I already saw promoting fascists ideas on the 2012 French Presidential thread) claims that it is RESISTANCE. This is just some random racist nerd, who got slapped by an arab when he was 12 and never accepted it, ever since he's even trying to change fucking history to back up his senseless war against Islam and arabs. Seriously, dont you have something else to do in your shitty life than going on an international Starcraft forum promoting your xenophobic ideas? This guy even went on Breivik massacre's thread and tried to argue that his ideas were good, that Islam doesnt belong in Europe, and that it will eventually cause a civil war here? I mean, you guys ban troll alright, but this is just neo-trolling, let this dumb kid open threads like that he'll soon deny Africa's colonization...
Well obviously Islam doesn't belong in Europe but neither does Christianity or any other religion.
Religion is a unfortunate relic of the past and we should leave it there.
Denying reality wont get us anywhere. Even if I agree, religions wont go away, not for centuries at least, and going into a religion war is actually the real danger in Europe, and in the world in general, exactly what this xenophobic idiot OP is trying to cultivate, hate, differences. He's in denial of the fact that Europe is multi-cultural, there is nothing to do about it, and he also forgets that Europe actually needed immigrants from Africa to build our economy, and fill the "lesser jobs". But he, like that mother fucker Breivik, is trying to imply that we should kick Islam out of Europe, it wont happen, we built our societies on securalism, you dont get to change that just because you feel like "arabs" dont fit your ideal of a white supremacist Europe. I could tolerate, even if it's hard to swallow, those ideas, if only these idiots, didnt go as far as changing history and giving excuses to horrible parts of it. Justifying crusades is just a very primal way of insulting a civilisation, a "race", a part of the world, it's pathetic and despicable.
Edit: And yes, this thread should be closed, the only goal of the OP is to create a mess and pushing racists to join him into a fascist fest
I suggest everyone watch Niall Ferguson's "Civilization: Is the West History." It spends a fair amount of time comparing and contrasting both sides during that period.
And, in my honest opinion, religion is, in its ultimate core, supposed to be "good," supposed to be a codification of the natural ideals of humans (i.e. it's obvious that murder is morally reprehensible; the Bible's Ten Commandments simply codifies it). The sad thing is that, throughout history, key religious figures have used religion as an excuse to further their personal agendas. Others are also misguided by their faith into believing that they are morally ascendant or superior than others.
That's the situation in my country; the Catholic bloc is constantly meddling with politics, many times wrongly so (such as the very controversial Reproductive Health Bill). In the southern half of the country, notably Mindanao, the Muslims exert a lot of political control, as well as "bully" others (my mother was the victim of one), simply with the claims that their religion is morally ascendant (hence the existence of the Abu Sayyaf, MNLF and MILF groups).
As a whole, I don't condemn religion or religious people; we are all free to believe what we want to. However, this freedom of belief ends when other's freedom of belief starts. The same way some Catholics or Muslims force upon others the general rhetoric of "You religion is shitty/wrong/filled with lies, and mine is correct/the absolute truth." It's despicable. The same way many try to erode science (remember Galileo and Darwin) just because it contradicts literal translations of religious texts; the same way it was used as a pretext for war (The Crusades), the same way it was used as a reason for genocide (The Holocaust), religion is a good thing (in the sense that there are good core values within it) manipulated to justify inhuman acts.
That's why I never buy it when someone attempts to defend the negative actions of their religious sect (regardless of which specific sect). That's why, in my eyes, the damage and atrocities caused by the Church through The Crusades (anyone remember the Children's Crusade in 1212?) can't be excused by "moral" or religious defense, or even as a retaliatory move; Hitler used the same arguments against the Jews, claiming that they caused the defeat of Germany in WWI, that they are inferior (physically and in moral/religious terms).
On May 14 2012 18:22 DN.rSquar3d wrote: I suggest everyone watch Niall Ferguson's "Civilization: Is the West History." It spends a fair amount of time comparing and contrasting both sides during that period.
I was excited by that series but it completely failed to even look at the actual question until the last episode. The rest of it was all about what made the west "great".
Then I saw Ferguson himself on a current affairs panel show and he is an awfully reactionary neocon. Steer well clear.
There's this little thing called "money". Jerusalem of those days was filled with gold and other jewelry, and since church is driven by it's greed, the crusades started.
Yes, the "official" reason of crusades was the war to take back the Holy City but in the end it's all money. For example, the Teutonic knights(one of the knight orders created by the crusades) managed to loot enough to start own counrty, proclaming that they no longer depend on Rome.
On May 14 2012 18:44 DidYuhim wrote: There's this little thing called "money". Jerusalem of those days was filled with gold and other jewelry, and since church is driven by it's greed, the crusades started.
Yes, the "official" reason of crusades was the war to take back the Holy City but in the end it's all money. For example, the Teutonic knights(one of the knight orders created by the crusades) managed to loot enough to start own counrty, proclaming that they no longer depend on Rome.
Well, that's the reason I hate church as whole.
Actually, Tyre & Acre were richer than Jerusalem, being trading ports and the gateway between the orient and the west. Tyre & Acre were where the King of Jerusalem derived his power.
The Teutonic Knight's vast wealth (along with the Templars and Hospitallers) wasn't due to looting, but more due to the grants of land made to them across Western Europe. For example, there's a place near me here called 'Temple Newsam' - the temple indicates it was owned by the Templars.
On May 14 2012 18:17 Tobberoth wrote: Why is this thread still in general? Why is it even opened? Seems to break a ton of TL rules. The OP has already been completely destroyed by intelligent people in the thread and has evaded their arguments for the whole topic... It just seems like dumb racism now, get it closed or moved.
Don't get yourself banned for backseat moderating dude Because that actually is (against) a rule.
And personally I'm very impressed with the OP. I can't even imagine the "bravery" it takes to keep showing your face in this thread after getting destroyed so badly by other posters with actual knowledge of the matter (and brains). Still, it was fun to see that knowledge for once prevailed over stupidity and bias. That might also be why the mods leave this open.
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
This shouldnt be allowed on TL, end of story. We're talking massacres of civilian populations, and this fucking idiot (who I already saw promoting fascists ideas on the 2012 French Presidential thread) claims that it is RESISTANCE. This is just some random racist nerd, who got slapped by an arab when he was 12 and never accepted it, ever since he's even trying to change fucking history to back up his senseless war against Islam and arabs. Seriously, dont you have something else to do in your shitty life than going on an international Starcraft forum promoting your xenophobic ideas? This guy even went on Breivik massacre's thread and tried to argue that his ideas were good, that Islam doesnt belong in Europe, and that it will eventually cause a civil war here? I mean, you guys ban troll alright, but this is just neo-trolling, let this dumb kid open threads like that he'll soon deny Africa's colonization...
Well obviously Islam doesn't belong in Europe but neither does Christianity or any other religion.
Religion is a unfortunate relic of the past and we should leave it there.
Denying reality wont get us anywhere. Even if I agree, religions wont go away, not for centuries at least, and going into a religion war is actually the real danger in Europe, and in the world in general, exactly what this xenophobic idiot OP is trying to cultivate, hate, differences. He's in denial of the fact that Europe is multi-cultural, there is nothing to do about it, and he also forgets that Europe actually needed immigrants from Africa to build our economy, and fill the "lesser jobs". But he, like that mother fucker Breivik, is trying to imply that we should kick Islam out of Europe, it wont happen, we built our societies on securalism, you dont get to change that just because you feel like "arabs" dont fit your ideal of a white supremacist Europe. I could tolerate, even if it's hard to swallow, those ideas, if only these idiots, didnt go as far as changing history and giving excuses to horrible parts of it. Justifying crusades is just a very primal way of insulting a civilisation, a "race", a part of the world, it's pathetic and despicable.
Edit: And yes, this thread should be closed, the only goal of the OP is to create a mess and pushing racists to join him into a fascist fest
Dude I have nothing about immigration(as you said, we NEED it) or skin color etc. Not saying we should kick Islam out anymore than we should kick Christianity out.
I just wish we could live in a world were religion didn't exist anymore.
On May 12 2012 21:44 SiroKO wrote: I've witnessed several intellectuals, politicians, manipulating these historical events for a wide variety of reasons. Mostly for the purpose of demonizing Christianity, which would therefore not be much better than the Islamic faith,
Is it just me or is this claiming that christianity is straight up better than "the Islamic faith"?
Edit: And without evidence there is of course no reason to even take this seriously.
On May 14 2012 18:44 DidYuhim wrote: There's this little thing called "money". Jerusalem of those days was filled with gold and other jewelry, and since church is driven by it's greed, the crusades started.
Yes, the "official" reason of crusades was the war to take back the Holy City but in the end it's all money. For example, the Teutonic knights(one of the knight orders created by the crusades) managed to loot enough to start own counrty, proclaming that they no longer depend on Rome.
Well, that's the reason I hate church as whole.
1. while money might have been a motivation you should not underestimate the sincerity with that the people believed in christianity in those days. It's a modern day mistake to think that people in those times thought like we do.
2. the teutonic knights didnt just start their own country. They were called by the polish king to fight and christianise the pagans in prussia and lithuania. So they were vassals of the polish king, even though later on they more or less became independent until Poland and Lithuania teamed up on them.
But historically and globally speaking, whether they toke place in the Balkans (later Crusades in the XVth century) or the Middle-East, this was nothing more than a fight between Islamic expansionism and Christian resistance to it.
This shouldnt be allowed on TL, end of story. We're talking massacres of civilian populations, and this fucking idiot (who I already saw promoting fascists ideas on the 2012 French Presidential thread) claims that it is RESISTANCE. This is just some random racist nerd, who got slapped by an arab when he was 12 and never accepted it, ever since he's even trying to change fucking history to back up his senseless war against Islam and arabs. Seriously, dont you have something else to do in your shitty life than going on an international Starcraft forum promoting your xenophobic ideas? This guy even went on Breivik massacre's thread and tried to argue that his ideas were good, that Islam doesnt belong in Europe, and that it will eventually cause a civil war here? I mean, you guys ban troll alright, but this is just neo-trolling, let this dumb kid open threads like that he'll soon deny Africa's colonization...
His statement, while an opinion, is not entirely invalid. It sounds more insulting than it is, but given that the start of the Crusades can be pointed to Muslim Expansion into Byzantium territory and their request for aid to the Pope and even centuries later in the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries aggression can still be seen easily by the Ottoman Turk's movement into Eastern Europe. There are several modern historians (whose names escape me at the moment, but if I had to I could dig through old notes to find) who agree with SiroKO's interpretation of events.
I'm not one of them, but I understand its reasoning.
Please do post said papers, studies or historians, because Siroko's statements have been awefully vain until now.
How is it that the Crusade was led to the east, when more than half of the Iberian peninsula was occupied by Almoravids? How is it that, if the Crusade was supposed to repel the Turk invader, it didn't advance in Turkish territory and chose to fight the Fatimids instead? How is it that armies supposed to fight infidels lost half of their troops attacking and sieging each other? How is it that a simple request for troops - not a cry for help, the Ottoman empire was weakened and the Byzantine army simply lacked in numbers and experience - can be interpreted as a call to "christian resistance"? How can we consider christian territories "united" when Alexis's predecessor had been excommunicated, and when other great threats were the Normans and various uprisings in Greece, all believers in Jesus' divine status?
I'll get around to other historians later when I have additional time for digging.
As to your 2nd question: The Europeans and the Arabs (I'm using the term extremely loosely here), had the same problem: Neither really understood the structure and organization of their enemy. The Europeans seldom understood the internal workings of their enemies, and likewise the arabs to the Europeans. The Crusades had many different goals, and I wont pretend to suggest that all of them were purely for defensive purposes. However, to many of the Crusaders at the time, that is how they viewed the events. What I mean is, both groups saw their enemies as 1 giant nation w/ unified rulers and a general consensus. This is far from the case. Also, while Spain wasn't a primary goal, it was still a goal to recapture and they made some attempts such as the Siege of Lisbon during the 2nd crusade.
The thing about Europeans attacking eachother is that you have to understand the political workings. Countries didn't really exist the way we think of them today. Many times, as the Crusading armies passed through, there were rivals or allies despite being the same "country." Also, supplies were limited and some local rulers either hated the crusaders are wanted to gouge them w/ expensive prices. When you're leading thousands of men who are hungry, it is hard to simply keep walking if a city closes its gates to you. Similarly, the groups that went on the Crusades were usually under the control of different leaders; sometimes they had different goals and ideas.
The call for help/aid is obviously tricky to talk about as no actual document is ever found that says exactly what was said in it. It is generally accepted that it was more of a request for troops, however, the Pope saw it as an opportunity to not only beat back the evil Muslims, but also in some vain attempt to convert the Byzantine back to Roman Catholicism. There was still no "unified" Catholicism, but they still considered those in the Byzantine as more like lost or confused distant relatives, whereas the Muslims were anything but. The Ottomans didn't exist at the time of the first Crusade (or maybe the "existed", but weren't really anything resembling a force).
You ask a lot of the same questions that I do as well, it should be noted. I don't agree with the theory that essentially it was a "defensive" war from the side of the Christians. Certainly there were some Crusading leaders who believed that the best defense was a good offense. Some saw it as a power grab. Some were extremely pious and believed it was God's will to go about on these Crusades, and even if it wasn't, getting out of purgatory seems like a pretty sweet deal.
Sorry, the term "Ottoman" is much easier to remember than the correct name (after a quick google, search, "Seldjoukids" and "Danichmendits").
What mostly goes against the idea that it truly was a defensive movement is in my eyes the story of the crusade itself. When I first read a bout it, I was sort of shocked and amused at how bizarre and childish it sounded. Crusaders reach this city, one of their leaders captures it and finds it pretty and simply stays there, meanwhile the vanguard of another leader is massacred by another one because they were praying on this land. Oh and this man didn't even get to the party because his forces were massacred in Hungary by the local lords. Quite frankly, it looked like the story of a group of drunk people walking through the city, which is why the whole entreprise was considered a miracle I guess.
I have no trouble considering the first wave - the popular crusade - a mostly religious movement. But the violent character of these times makes me doubt that most of the noblement involved solely wanted to protect their foreign cousin. Constantinople was far away and probably seemed very different from them, too, one should not forget that at such times, a peasant's homeland was his village, not his "country". The ambitions of smaller lords were being actively fought by the Church, and so this Holy War was probably led by ambition for a great deal of the crusaders.
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote: You should read 'The crusade through Arab eyes'.
Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire (which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place) against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
Suffice to say Alexius wasn't very happy when a mob of unorganized barbarian religious lunatics led by greedy nobles arrived at his gates.
Religion was all an excuse and a manipulation of the common people, as usual. The jews and the orthodox Christians had as much to fear from the crusaders as the muslims did as they say jews, orthodox christians and muslims as basically the same. There is at least one battle in which arabs and crusaders fought other arabs and other crusaders. And of all massacres, the cannibalism at Ma'arra was the worst. It was basically crusaders eating whoever they could capture after sacking to achieve 'shock and awe'. The cannibalism wasn't the result of famine among the crusader soldiers. It was meant as intimidation.
Can't believe you want to argue this was a 'just war'. Didn't realize Breivik had internet in his cell block.
User was temp banned for this post.
I can't believe this user was temp banned for this. I'm very disappointed, TL.
On May 12 2012 21:50 Miyoshino wrote: You should read 'The crusade through Arab eyes'.
Basically everyone did it for their own agenda. The Pope called for the crusades to make the Church more important. Alexius needed help protecting the Byzantine empire (which was created through conquest and unjust invasions in the first place) against the Arabs. The European nobles that went wanted to conquer new lands to rule.
Suffice to say Alexius wasn't very happy when a mob of unorganized barbarian religious lunatics led by greedy nobles arrived at his gates.
Religion was all an excuse and a manipulation of the common people, as usual. The jews and the orthodox Christians had as much to fear from the crusaders as the muslims did as they say jews, orthodox christians and muslims as basically the same. There is at least one battle in which arabs and crusaders fought other arabs and other crusaders. And of all massacres, the cannibalism at Ma'arra was the worst. It was basically crusaders eating whoever they could capture after sacking to achieve 'shock and awe'. The cannibalism wasn't the result of famine among the crusader soldiers. It was meant as intimidation.
Can't believe you want to argue this was a 'just war'. Didn't realize Breivik had internet in his cell block.
User was temp banned for this post.
I can't believe this user was temp banned for this. I'm very disappointed, TL.
I can't believe you overlook his audacious last sentence. Equating fellow users with Hitler (or modern day equivalents) has always been a banworthy offense.
On May 14 2012 21:55 kranten wrote: I always wondered: did the pope really think he was doing good? Or were they just looking for more power, land and money?
Not sure if anyone can really answer this truthfully, but I'm constantly amazed with mans ability to lie to themselves. So the answer might actually be "both".
On May 14 2012 21:55 kranten wrote: I always wondered: did the pope really think he was doing good? Or were they just looking for more power, land and money?
Both. Initially, Urban II was looking to end the great schism between eastern and western christianity by providing the byzantines with the support they desired. Innocent III however (1200s) organised expeditions to Egypt with the aim of smashing the Ayyubid power base and thus ensuring the survival of the rump Kingdom of Jerusalem. Only once the Ayyubids were crippled could the Christians seriously hope to recover Jerusalem. Note that Jerusalem is not really at all economically significant. Religion is everything where Jerusalem is concerned.
The whole thing about Holy War is a bit iffy. The rhetoric of Holy War was not employed from the outset, it was only later that theologians siezed upon significance in motivating men to fight. Then you have things like the pope preaching crusades against his political opponents or the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II negotiating the recovery of Jerusalem in the 1220s. Negotiating with the 'infidel' hardly fits with the idea of 'holy war'.
On May 14 2012 21:55 kranten wrote: I always wondered: did the pope really think he was doing good? Or were they just looking for more power, land and money?
It can't be both? To my mind this is one of the things that makes the motivations behind the Crusades so difficult for many people to get their heads around. I think as humans, by and large we are hard-wired to look for simple, black and white answers to questions. Combine this with the fact that religion, especially organized religion is inextricably linked with the Crusades and you have a set of circumstances that are very difficult for us to get our collective heads around.
I don't think its off the mark to argue that the Crusaders and the Papacy were motivated both by a genuine piety and a belief that what they were doing was right. If you read first-hand accounts of the Crusades there is a genuine piety and a belief that the pilgrimage to Jerusalem or another expedition granting the plenary indulgence at its completion would genuinely grant eternal salvation. I also think that there was certainly (especially in the early stages of the Crusading movement) an equally genuine self-interest. That said, realistically, from a rational perspective the risks had to outweigh the rewards. Casualties on Crusade were appalling, the Crusaders had to travel immense distances (This is especially true of the First and Second Crusades during which the Crusaders took the overland route through Anatolia, in later Crusades they tended to travel by ship straight to the Holy Land) and as a result the costs were astronomical. On the First Crusade, there was no way that the Crusaders could really have know what if any temporal rewards they would receive when they reached the Holy Land. In later Crusades and expeditions to the Holy Land, most of the available land was already taken and the crusaders would have needed new conquests in order to have any hope of even breaking even and offsetting the expenses they had already incurred. That said, I also do believe that stories of the fabled riches of the Holy Land and Egypt played a role in motivating people to go on Crusade. I think that the Crusades throw people for a loop simply because of the fact that, in the end, there is no single motivation that can completely explain the motivations of the Crusaders. It's an extremely complicated issue, much like the Crusades them self, now that I think about it.
This OP is ridiculous. How can you even pretend to claim some sort of credibility talking on this topic when you make a 30 lines "explanation" of the crusades. It's like the famous "can anyone recap WWII post? - Yes: BOOM BOOM SPLANG SPLANGG YAHHHHH FUCK HITLER" .... your "presentation" (it hurts to call it that way when you actually present nothing of the subject) is the best uninformative post I've ever seen. No seriously, if you wanna make a post on something, just make sure you got ALL the information covered. If it's too long OR if you're too lazy, than don't stop halfway through pretending you covered it all, just don't post anything at all ...
as far as I know the first crusade was the only crusade that was actually truly successful because they were able to capture jerusalem while the following crusades were unable to do the same.
On May 14 2012 22:47 white_horse wrote: as far as I know the first crusade was the only crusade that was actually truly successful because they were able to capture jerusalem while the following crusades were unable to do the same.
This is true for the Crusades in the Holy Land, but keep in mind that the Reconquista in Spain, the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathar Heresy in Southern France and the Northern Crusades against the (initially) pagan peoples of the Baltic are also considered Crusades by most modern Crusade historians and they were mostly successful in achieving their aims (Drive the Muslims out of Spain, destroy the Cathar's and Christianize the Balkans respectively).
On May 14 2012 21:55 kranten wrote: I always wondered: did the pope really think he was doing good? Or were they just looking for more power, land and money?
It can't be both? To my mind this is one of the things that makes the motivations behind the Crusades so difficult for many people to get their heads around. I think as humans, by and large we are hard-wired to look for simple, black and white answers to questions. Combine this with the fact that religion, especially organized religion is inextricably linked with the Crusades and you have a set of circumstances that are very difficult for us to get our collective heads around.
I don't think its off the mark to argue that the Crusaders and the Papacy were motivated both by a genuine piety and a belief that what they were doing was right. If you read first-hand accounts of the Crusades there is a genuine piety and a belief that the pilgrimage to Jerusalem or another expedition granting the plenary indulgence at its completion would genuinely grant eternal salvation. I also think that there was certainly (especially in the early stages of the Crusading movement) an equally genuine self-interest. That said, realistically, from a rational perspective the risks had to outweigh the rewards. Casualties on Crusade were appalling, the Crusaders had to travel immense distances (This is especially true of the First and Second Crusades during which the Crusaders took the overland route through Anatolia, in later Crusades they tended to travel by ship straight to the Holy Land) and as a result the costs were astronomical. On the First Crusade, there was no way that the Crusaders could really have know what if any temporal rewards they would receive when they reached the Holy Land. In later Crusades and expeditions to the Holy Land, most of the available land was already taken and the crusaders would have needed new conquests in order to have any hope of even breaking even and offsetting the expenses they had already incurred. That said, I also do believe that stories of the fabled riches of the Holy Land and Egypt played a role in motivating people to go on Crusade. I think that the Crusades throw people for a loop simply because of the fact that, in the end, there is no single motivation that can completely explain the motivations of the Crusaders. It's an extremely complicated issue, much like the Crusades them self, now that I think about it.
It is clearly both. Humans I've learned over the years always want something, and they rationalize that something, sometimes even think it is a right for them to have that something.
My example may be bizzarre but... Somebody sees a hot woman in the streets, invites her for dinner, have a nice time, etc, the first thing they saw was she is hot, they want sex, then rationalize they love her even when its not necessarily true convincing themselves that it was more than sex. But after you rationalize it becomes really more than just sex, since you convinced yourself...
My knowledge of the crusades is really limited, maybe they conquered the holy land because they though it should be a land of the christian-catolics and as a bonus a rich land and more property for the nobles to profit from. Obviously they could not be driven only by greed, because the risks were huge in the crusades nobody knew if they had any chance, and of course it was an oportunity to get rich while getting your sins forgiven for a cause.
Was it just?, not for us, but for them made all the sense. They would be forgiven, they would earn richess, they would conquer the holy land for the christian-catolics... that's a lot of good reasons to do it.
EPT![[image loading]](http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/images/crusaders.jpg)
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![[image loading]](http://warandgame.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/emilesignol-thetakingofjerusalem.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ptAqeqIdoX0/TKV-ux-L4QI/AAAAAAAADwo/LK8o0C2qb8k/S1600-R/The+Fall+of+Constantinople,+29+May+1453+II.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://a1.idata.over-blog.com/360x348/1/27/51/12/images/chevalier4.jpg)
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good or bad.
