The Crusades
Posted: Sat Apr 27, 2013 8:28 am
Why is it every-time anybody brings up radical islam killing thousands around the world right now somebody feels the need to say "ever hear of the crusades, christians killed thousands too".
It makes me crazy! They need to teach young kids history if they are using the crusades to bash christianity and support islam while islam itself is the reason for the crusades. Maybe if the Seljuks didn't plunder, rape, and murder half the villages of the byzantine empire, Alexios I wouldn't have felt the need to ask pope urban II for an mercenary force to help him take back byzantine lands. Maybe if the Seljuks barbarism hadn't expanded onto the borders of christian eastern europe, pope urban II wouldn't have even cared.
The facts are the crusades saved christianity, and islam expansionism and barbarism caused it. Saying otherwise shows ignorance . Without the crusades, europe would have stayed fractured and the 4 divided sultanates of the Seljuks would have rapidly expanded into europe, defeated the byzantine empire 400 years earlier, and exterminated christianity. But the Seljuks fractured and fell, and many minor kingdoms and empires of islam sprout up, eliminating the threat of islam to christian europe and for a short time the byzantine empire.
And to add on, bringing up cases of what i guess we would consider war crimes committed by a the crusaders does not mean the justification for the crusades was obsolete. That's on par with saying america was not justified for fighting in world war II because of the Canicattì massacre. Or that russia was not justified to fight in world war II because of what happened in the sacking of berlin.
Using the crusades to bash christianity is either the product of brainwashing, christophobia, bigotry, ignorance, or lack of history knowledge.
(Note that when i say "the crusades" , i refer to only crusades 1-3, most crusades after were to help support/defend the gains made by previous crusades.)
It makes me crazy! They need to teach young kids history if they are using the crusades to bash christianity and support islam while islam itself is the reason for the crusades. Maybe if the Seljuks didn't plunder, rape, and murder half the villages of the byzantine empire, Alexios I wouldn't have felt the need to ask pope urban II for an mercenary force to help him take back byzantine lands. Maybe if the Seljuks barbarism hadn't expanded onto the borders of christian eastern europe, pope urban II wouldn't have even cared.
The facts are the crusades saved christianity, and islam expansionism and barbarism caused it. Saying otherwise shows ignorance . Without the crusades, europe would have stayed fractured and the 4 divided sultanates of the Seljuks would have rapidly expanded into europe, defeated the byzantine empire 400 years earlier, and exterminated christianity. But the Seljuks fractured and fell, and many minor kingdoms and empires of islam sprout up, eliminating the threat of islam to christian europe and for a short time the byzantine empire.
And to add on, bringing up cases of what i guess we would consider war crimes committed by a the crusaders does not mean the justification for the crusades was obsolete. That's on par with saying america was not justified for fighting in world war II because of the Canicattì massacre. Or that russia was not justified to fight in world war II because of what happened in the sacking of berlin.
Using the crusades to bash christianity is either the product of brainwashing, christophobia, bigotry, ignorance, or lack of history knowledge.
(Note that when i say "the crusades" , i refer to only crusades 1-3, most crusades after were to help support/defend the gains made by previous crusades.)
