Tune in for next week's episode entitled, "The Inquisition: Fact or Fancy?"

Heh, Ara. That was cute in all honesty.

Have to hand it to you Dean, you do come up with the facts to support your argument. Thanks.

Another Simple Truth: (4) Thousands of Jews across Europe were killed by Crusaders enroute to Jerusalem... simply for being non-Christian.

I think that main point of the time of the Crusades is that both Muslim aggression and Christian aggression (not to mention the systematic oppression and murder of Jews by both) wasn't even purely based on religion. Sure, Christians wanted to control the Holy Land, as did Muslims, but as in all wars, motivations were also financial and political and geographical. No war is fought for purely ideological reasons when there are other gains to be made.

I think that when people "sneer" at the Crusades (and what would you like them to do -- applaud?), they're sneering at fruitless and preventable bloodshed based purely on religious grounds. I don't think they're wrong for sneering. Such wars were and are repugnant. I think they're wrong for being so naive as to believe religion was the whole picture.

There's some interesting history on the Crusades. I'd encourage everyone to read it, rather than letting a scattering of websites (including mine) have the last word in shaping your perspective.

It's not that people sneer at the Crusades. It's that people use the Crusades to sneer at Christianity.

"Look at the Crusades, you violated all your ethical beliefs and teachings. Christianity is therefore always hypocritical and immoral, and Christians have no right to criticize the behavior of others. The Crusades are the true nature of Christianity."

That's the unspoken message when Crusades-sneering goes on.

John, quite frankly that is entirely wrong. As Dean quite rightly points out the Crusades (with exception of the Albigensian and Barbar ones) were defensive outtings to prevent further Muslim gains in Europe. La Reconquista was merely re-taking Spain and Portugal.

The oppression of the Jews was not systematic during the Crusades (it was during the Inquisition however...but that was because they were going after all non-Catholics). In fact those who carried out the slaughter of Jews on the way were condemned, removed from their positions and some case tried for their crimes.

Dean, I had already read that piece and printed it out for keeping. Its a rather good consise outline of the Crusades.

None of the articles you linked mentioned the Children's Crusades.

We must keep in mind also the Battle of Tours in 732 when Charles Martel stopped the Muslim armies from advancing into France, and and also the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 when a Pole, Jan Sobieski, led Spanish, Venetian, and Papal forces to halt a Muslim (Turkish) advance into Europe. In both cases, the non-Muslim (Christian) side was waging a purely defensive war.
The fact is that both Christianity and Islam are and have been aggressively missionary religions, and both monotheistic, each insisting that theirs is The One And Only True God and that all other Gods are false and evil. In the West, Erastianism and then the Enlightenment brought this under control somewhat, allowing human liberty to fluorish. Not so, unfortunately, with most of Islam today.

I think that to term any of the Crusades as purely defensive is a bit simplistic. While I've read some history on the Crusades I don't have my citations here beside me, so this should be taken with a grain of salt, but much of the propaganda of the time did speak of the aggression of the Muslims (Saracens, Moors, what have you) as they did of the divine right of Christendom to hold the Holy Lands. The passions of Europeans were certainly inflamed by stories of Muslim conquest, but again I think it's simplistic and disingenuous to paint Muslims purely as aggressors and Europeans purely as the defenders, given both religions' track records of aggressive exportation (and even coercion) when it came to spreading their faiths. Religion was but one facet of an overall "way of life" that various European and Muslim governments were trying to impose upon foreign peoples; and from a historical standpoint, the rhetoric of those times and the rhetoric of today seem to have many paralells running between them.

It's also interesting to remember that much of Europe became part of Christendom through Roman Conquest.

I'm not really interested in smearing Christianity or Islam per se, but both have proven to be religions that can tolerate (if not encourage) conquest and forced converstion.

I understand that Dean is trying to make the point that Christianity has done more good than harm in Western Civilization; yet as an atheist I have a harm time believing that the good of our modern world owes thanks to the Bible. The Enlightenment (to which we owe great thanks for the current structure of our government and society) focused on the goodness of *man* and the belief that *man* had the capacity to be good and do good, and to apprehend the nature of the universe. Often, Enlightenment thinkers fought against religious orthodoxy for the right to follow their paths of investigation.

I don't believe that religion is a destructive force, per se, but it can be -- just like it can be a creative force. I do not believe that religion is any better or any worse than the people who follow it, just like any system of belief. To affirm or condemn any belief system purely on its letter, rather than paying attention to its application by various peoples, doesn't seem a sufficient measure of that belief system's worth.

John:

Such wars were and are repugnant.

From a Christian point of view, yes. Probably, also, from a secular point of view; why fight over stories?

But don't forget: Mohammed himself led such wars, and his successors followed his example in building the Caliphate. Certainly, they are not "repugnant" in the Muslim tradition.

John,
How does an atheist decide what is good and what is bad?

John,I guess that that means that we can also thank the enlightenment for communism and its bloody purges?
The doctrine that man is all that matters can cut in many ways.
Besides which, all of this focus on the (supposedly atheist) enlightenment in its effects on our government really ignores the long evolution towards our current form of government that had been going on in England.

Also, it ignores that religious freedom as we know it in the US was not very much derived from the englightenment as much as from there having been far too many small religions in the colonies for establishment to work. Religious freedom was not a principle, it was a necessary compromise. They could not have gotten the United States off of the ground had there been any chance of establishing one of the religions as the state religion.
Anyhow, the dignity of all men and the fallibility of all men are both christian doctrines; the notion that it is men who build governments was a christian idea. It just took a really long time for it to supplant the cultural idea that governments are supreme.
The enlightenment was an interesting phenomenon, but it's not a good idea to overrate its importance.
Besides, the notion that all men are created equal is wholely insupportable in an atheist framework, which makes it not very surprising that whenever you find a truly atheist country, they don't hold it. One of the most obvious things in the world is that some men are better than others; it takes a specific dogma to reject that idea.

John:

The passions of Europeans were certainly inflamed by stories of Muslim conquest, but again I think it's simplistic and disingenuous to paint Muslims purely as aggressors and Europeans purely as the defenders...

Purely? Sure; no one is pure. (Isn't that a Christian doctrine?) But it is not out of line to describe the times of the Crusades and the Muslim conquest as mainly one of Muslim aggression.

Remember that Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, and Asia Minor were once as Christian as Italy, France, and Britain, and that they were converted by the sword by the Muslim conquest.

The Crusaders, therefore, had every bit as much right (and, perhaps, even more so) to wage war against Islam as today's Palestinians have to fight against modern Israel for the West Bank and Gaza. (Or for the whole of the region, if you prefer.) That struggle certainly seems to hold much greater respect than the Crusades.

John:

It's also interesting to remember that much of Europe became part of Christendom through Roman Conquest.

Much of Europe became part of Roman paganism through Roman conquest, you mean. Rome post-Constantine conquered no new territory, in Europe or anywhere else.

Next, you'll be telling us that George Washington was complicit in the Holocaust by doing business with Hessian (later German) mercenaries.

John, most of Europe, that was ever Roman territory, was conquered long before the 4th Century AD, when Constantine made it legal to be a Christian in Rome. For most of the time that Rome was seizing land, the Christians were either an oppressed, heretical minority, or non-existant.

Most of the 'conquering' done in the name of Christendom was purely financial, with Kings and Princes seeking deals with the Catholic Church: absolution for thier sins in return for allowimg missionaries into the new conquered lands, and encouraging Christianity.

This does not explain the Spanish or Portugese ages of empire, but the quest to spread Christianity was a side job, at best.

One point is that the Crusades are now being used by Muslims as being the "root" of anti-Western feeling. This is nonsense as Dean stated. The Crusades were mostly defensive and the Muslims were mostly the *victors.* It would be like Americans holding a grudge because we *beat* the Germans in WWII.

An important--yet often overlooked--fact, is that the Crusades went against the teachings of Christ.

John 18:36 Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."

True servants of Christ will die for Him, but they won't kill to spread His message. The Crusades turned that upside down, which is why I get so irritated by Christian high schools which charge forth into battle on the gridiron or basketball court wearing "Crusaders" on their jerseys.

Jeff Licquia: Just what I was thinking. It's always seemed bizarre to me that the Christians should be blamed for trying to retake Jerusalem, but the Muslims not blamed for having taken it in the first place.

Randy, you are absolutely correct. The Crusades did go against the teachings of Christ. On the other hand, the Muslim "crusades" (jihad) are right in line with Mohammad's.

It belongs to the Jews!

Jerusalem, I meant. The Jews built it and owned it until they were expelled by the Romans in 70 C.E.. (Not to imply that the Romans were anti-Semitic, but they did deal rather harshly with conquered peoples when those people were rebellious, e.g., some of the Celts. As all or nearly all empires have done throughout history. The Romans were a great civilization.)

Cardeblu is correct, the Koran directly tells its adherent to make the Sphere of War part of the Sphere of Islam by force if necessary. Jihad is an intergral part of Islam.

So would Christ be against the defence of Spain against the Moorish hordes or Vlad Tepish's defence of his people against invaders?

Andrew:

So would Christ be against the defence of Spain against the Moorish hordes or Vlad Tepish's defence of his people against invaders?

No. "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's."

Steven:

It belongs to the Jews!

Actually, the Jews took Jerusalem (Jebus) from the Jebusites somewhere around the 1400s BC.

Which should, hopefully, put to rest any of the "root causes" and "historic rights" theories of solving the Palestinian problem. We should simply come to something approaching a fair solution, and nullify all previous claims, given that nearly all such claims are tainted by bloodshed.

John Kusch,

Perhaps a bit simplistic, but not overly so.

The Moslems first attacked Christians in 630...the First Crusade began in 1096; thats 466 years between the dates. Between those dates the then-Christian lands of Armenia, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morrocco, Spain and Portugal were conquered by the Moslems. Part (and only part) of Spain and Portugal had been recovered by the time of the First Crusade - and this was the first general offensive of Christians into what was by then recognised as the Moslem world.

As for the brutality of it all - I'm dismissive of it; the sack of Constantinople in 1453 and the ravages of the Moslems along the coasts of France and Italy were worse, but still in keeping with the morality of warfare in that time.

Steven Anderson,

Just because it makes me grit my teeth; nothing happened in "70 CE" because "CE" is just a bit of nit-picking PC bullshit.

This is the Year of our Lord 2003....its not anyone's fault that the Christian calendar became standard for the world, so lets not have people trying to pretend that a "Common Era" began coincidentally with the accepted date of Christ's birth.

Mark

Thanks for explaining that CE thing. I was wondering what on earth that meant. Good grief is there no end to PC? By all means, let it be the Year of the Rat or whatever the Chinese call it...anything to put the Christians in their proper place when it comes to the choice of historical dating.

jane m:
"By all means, let it be the Year of the Rat or whatever the Chinese call it...anything to put the Christians in their proper place when it comes to the choice of historical dating."

My mother and I were born in Years of the Rat, and I will not hear it slandered. Anyway, by my reckoning, AD 1 was a Year of the Cock. :)

Dean, are you bringing this up just because it's something that gets on your nerves in general, or were you thinking of it specifically in context of people's warning against using the word crusade in connection with the war on terrorism?

John: I agree with much of what you say, although I have no idea what your atheism should have to do with any of it.

Where I disagree with you is that even if you do believe that forced conversions and violence have been common for Christians--a debateable proposition--the Crusades are not a good illustration of that proposition.

Christianity was completely non-violent and pacifist until it became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, the coming of Christianity to Rome also coincided with three remarkable shifts: 1) Rome became far less aggressive and stopped acquiring new territories, 2) slavery began to decline, and 3) the barbaric gladiatorial games also began to decline.

By any historical measure, Rome became less harsh, less brutal, and less aggressive once Christianity became the preferred religion within the Empire. Note also that when Christianity did become the official religion, the other religions were not banned, and Rome's long practice of tolerating other religions did not end.

In short, Christianity was a force for tolerance during its first 750 years at minimum.

The Crusades began as a reaction to the fact that the Eastern Empire was toppled and much of the populace strongarmed into converting to Islam. The Crusaders did not, as is commonly assumed, attempt to convert people to Christianity; their main rallying cry was that their fellow Christians were being oppressed and forced to convert.

Any look at the long history of the Crusades shows that efforts to force anyone to convert to Christianity during the Crusades was quite rare. They thought they were defending fellow Christians from aggression and tyranny. Although certainly the politics of princes and Kings attempting to acquire new wealth and territory played into all of this, the notion that the Crusades were in any way an effort to force people to become Christians is simply false.

===

On the flip side, I think Randy Brandt is also missing one key point. I think it stems from his basic spiritual philosophy, which seems to be that Christianity was frozen in amber at the Council of Nicea. ;-)

Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire--not by force, because other religions were allowed and tolerated. Furthermore, the Eastern part of the Empire was quite peaceful and prosperous until Muslim conquerors came in and strongarmed many of the inhabitants ino converting to Islam.

The Crusaders saw it as their duty to defend their fellow Christians from aggressors who took their lands and often forced them to turn away from the Christian faith. Once again, from their perspective they were not being aggressive, and they were certainly not trying to force their faith upon anyone.

I don't see anything extra-Biblical about that, really. Unless the argument is that Christians simply aren't allowed to use force to defend themselves or others, anyway.

By the way, "Oceanguy" made a statement that has been refuted, but which needs to be refuted even some more.

He said, "Thousands of Jews across Europe were killed by Crusaders enroute to Jerusalem... simply for being non-Christian."

This is the sort of one-sided, arm-waving assertion that I so object to. It would be helpful if people would actually read the material I link to before arguing, but here's a quote that helps put this into perspective for those who didn't bother:

During the early days of the First Crusade in 1095, a ragtag band of Crusaders led by Count Emicho of Leiningen made its way down the Rhine, robbing and murdering all the Jews they could find. Without success, the local bishops attempted to stop the carnage. In the eyes of these warriors, the Jews, like the Muslims, were the enemies of Christ. Plundering and killing them, then, was no vice. Indeed, they believed it was a righteous deed, since the Jews’ money could be used to fund the Crusade to Jerusalem. But they were wrong, and the Church strongly condemned the anti-Jewish attacks.

Fifty years later, when the Second Crusade was gearing up, St. Bernard frequently preached that the Jews were not to be persecuted:

"Ask anyone who knows the Sacred Scriptures what he finds foretold of the Jews in the Psalm. 'Not for their destruction do I pray,' it says. The Jews are for us the living words of Scripture, for they remind us always of what our Lord suffered.... Under Christian princes they endure a hard captivity, but 'they only wait for the time of their deliverance.'"

Nevertheless, a fellow Cistercian monk named Radulf stirred up people against the Rhineland Jews, despite numerous letters from Bernard demanding that he stop. At last Bernard was forced to travel to Germany himself, where he caught up with Radulf, sent him back to his convent, and ended the massacres.

In other words, during the centuries-long history of the Crusades, attacks on Jews were neither the central focus, nor were they the norm. They were condemned by the church when they happened, and not in any sort of after-the-fact, "oh gosh, we're sorry, we shouldn't have done that" way, either. It was something that the Church contemporaneously went out of its way to put a stop to when it occurred, and to strongly condemn as soon as they found out about it. The Church usually went out of its way to forbid that sort of behavior in advance, and worked hard to put a stop to it when some Crusaders were caught doing it anyway.

Failure to acknowledge this is illustrative of the kind of anti-Christian stereotyping and bigotry that I so object to. It's like saying, "Well, the fact is that lots of Jews were bankers and wealthy merchants!" as some sort of proof that Judaism is a religion that is inherently greedy and money-obsessed. It's not just simplistic, it's actually bigoted.

Sean,

Aren't most politicians born in the Year of the Rat? Or is that lawyers?

Kidding!

I was born in the Year of the Dragon - plus you add to this I'm a scorpio with the Moon is some odd house...generally, I can scare the superstitious just by showing them my star chart. It helps that "Mark" has its root in "Mars", so I'm some sort of baleful harbinger of war, plague, famine and Republican majorities.

Dean:
"Christianity was completely non-violent and pacifist until it became the official religion of the Roman Empire."

It might also be noted that Christians themselves weren't exactly treated benignly by the Romans before Constantine (c.f., Nero). The martyrs in Foxe's Book of ---- are not pagans, though the later attacks catalogued are Christian-on-Christian.

Mark:
"Aren't most politicians born in the Year of the Rat? Or is that lawyers?"

The Chinese zodiac has a rat, a snake, and a wild boar--and a dog, a monkey, and a goat, come to think of it. Hours of potential jokes.

Crusaders Killing Jews(?)
Look at the dates of the massacres of Jews during that period and I believe you will find a very strong correlation to the dates of various Crusades. That is where the impression comes from, not some bigoted PC propaganda, even if the organizers of the Crusades weren't responsible.

Actually the Crusades were lot like Islam today where increased religious fervor (as a result of a society in crisis) lead people to kill Jews, even if that wasn't what they were supposed to do.

On the flip side, I think Randy Brandt is also missing one key point. I think it stems from his basic spiritual philosophy, which seems to be that Christianity was frozen in amber at the Council of Nicea. ;-)

Nicea?! Better back up a couple of centuries! :) Seriously, there are millions of Christians who believe true Christianity has to be consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ and the apostles or it's no longer true Christianity. From them we learn that you can die for Christ, but you don't kill for Him. That doesn't necessarily mandate pacificism, but it does make wars of aggression hard to justify.

I think there were a lot of rank-and-file crusaders who thought they were on a glorious spiritual mission (jihad-like, if you will), but the nobles and kings were cynically using them to further their own means, whether that was defending lands or acquiring new power and riches.

"Christianity was completely non-violent and pacifist until it became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Furthermore, the coming of Christianity to Rome also coincided with three remarkable shifts: 1) Rome became far less aggressive and stopped acquiring new territories, 2) slavery began to decline, and 3) the barbaric gladiatorial games also began to decline.

By any historical measure, Rome became less harsh, less brutal, and less aggressive once Christianity became the preferred religion within the Empire."

Can't those three shifts be explained by Rome's economic decline? A poorer Rome would be less able to conquer territories; the acquisition of slaves was primarily a side-effect of conquest, and with less conquest there'd be fewer new slaves; a poorer Rome would also be less able to pay the massive costs of the gladiatorial system (how many tens of thousands of wild animals were shipped annually from Africa to Rome?).

A minor quibble. I'd agree with your overall point, that Christianity on balance reduced violence in the societies it influenced.

Looks like this conversation is pretty much over (no posts in a month or so) but I could not resist the attempt to find out when the Palestinians existed or were created?
Am I the only one who remembers Golda Meir's statement?
It was true then why is it not true now when people bring up "Palestinians" fighting for their land with Israel.
EG: "today's Palestinians have to fight against modern Israel for the West Bank and Gaza. (Or for the whole of the region, if you prefer.) That struggle certainly seems to hold much greater respect than the Crusades."
From Jeff
Feel free to check some websites for info on the existance of a Palestinian.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28222
http://www.netanyahu.org/peopthatneve.html
http://www.masada2000.org/been-had.html
Like I said this probably doesnt matter because this conv. is over but I would enjoy any and all conversation on this topic.

there is no god, no heaven no hell, drop the crutch in which you lean on