Professor beaten; attackers cite KU creationism class

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Originally Posted by KukriKhan

Let's stay on-topic and civil.

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One should think that this was a rather straight-forward statement...

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Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit

Islam? Tolerant?

I suggest you read this.

They began waging a holy war on the rest of the world from the time of Mohammed. Their 'prophet's' instructions were to convert people to Islam, tax them if they didn't convert, and kill them if they didn't pay the tax. Even if they paid the tax, they were oppressed second class citizens with no right to self defense ot free practice of religion.

For hundreds of years the armies of Islam ramapged about, slaughtering whole cities. The Crusades were a defensive response.

Crazed Rabbit

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i must start by informing you that i am not biased against christians (i am one) but the actions of the crusaders were one of the most dispicable violent and unprovoked campiagns of history, they were fighting purely for glory and power, while Saladin spared the christians in the settlements he took and christians to this day still live throughout the holy land, the crusaders on the other hand slaughtered the populations of many muslim cities and to top it off during the forth crusade captured Constantinople capital of the christian Byzantine Empire, sacked it (killing the men and rapeing all the women, even the nuns) and took over.
Why?
Because the Byzantines were rich, it is clear from this what was realy guiding the crusaders.

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Originally Posted by Crazed Rabbit

The Crusades were a defensive response.

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Lemme guess...

The Pope had intelligence reports indicating that the Saracens were developing WMDs, so he had no choice but to send thousands of good Christians to rape and pillage their way through the middle east as a "defensive" measure...

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Originally Posted by Byzantine Mercenary

i must start by informing you that i am not biased against christians (i am one) but the actions of the crusaders were one of the most dispicable violent and unprovoked campiagns of history, they were fighting purely for glory and power, while Saladin spared the christians in the settlements he took and christians to this day still live throughout the holy land, the crusaders on the other hand slaughtered the populations of many muslim cities and to top it off during the forth crusade captured Constantinople capital of the christian Byzantine Empire, sacked it (killing the men and rapeing all the women, even the nuns) and took over.
Why?
Because the Byzantines were rich, it is clear from this what was realy guiding the crusaders.

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It had always been my opinion that the crusade 'movement' was indeed a response to pressure by muslim forces on the Byzantine Empire. It was also handy for Western Europe because it gave them something to do with all of the landless nobles that were milling about causing trouble. Instead of killing each other, they could send them off to gain their own lands while killing the 'infidel'. Naturally, the pope also expected it would result in the return of Jerusalem to Christian hands. Things went fairly well at first, the Byzantines reclaimed some lands, Jerusalem was (brutally)retaken, but later greed and stupidity seemed to take over and successive crusades went downhill accordingly.

...this is all terribly off-topic isnt it? ~D

More on-topic:

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Why are there so many idiots who feel wrongdoing by a few Christians among billions is an indictment of the whole religion?

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Guilt by association is a commonly used tactic by some around here it seems. :san_wink:

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

It had always been my opinion that the crusade 'movement' was indeed a response to pressure by muslim forces on the Byzantine Empire. It was also handy for Western Europe because it gave them something to do with all of the landless nobles that were milling about causing trouble. Instead of killing each other, they could send them off to gain their own lands while killing the 'infidel'. Naturally, the pope also expected it would result in the return of Jerusalem to Christian hands. Things went fairly well at first, the Byzantines reclaimed some lands, Jerusalem was (brutally)retaken, but later greed and stupidity seemed to take over and successive crusades went downhill accordingly.

...this is all terribly off-topic isnt it? ~D

More on-topic:
Guilt by association is a commonly used tactic by some around here it seems. :san_wink:

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I agree with most of what you say but I don't think that the pope and the rest of western europe thought very highly of the Byzantines as the Byzantines were in theory Romans and so blocked any attempts by the west and in particular the holy roman empire to decare themselves the reborn Roman empire. I seem to remember that the crusaders took Antioch and refused to give it back to the Byzantines?

your right, guilt by association is rife on these forums, and the world in general!:san_grin:

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

It had always been my opinion that the crusade 'movement' was indeed a response to pressure by muslim forces on the Byzantine Empire.

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To continue this off-topic part.

The Byzantines weren't too happy about those unruly barbarian crusaders, they had hoped on some good mercs or money.

The Byz did have to fight the less noble lords almost from the beginning though, as those lords weren't so happy about surrendering their conquered parts to the Byz as they were supposed to and they didn't exactly considered Byzantine ground as unconquerable either.

It's pretty obvious that the membership would rather debate/discuss ancient history than current events, so we'll not let this topic stand in their way.

Thanks to all contributors. Closed.