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I think the crusades are a fair comparison. I am also surprised how ignorant people are about what the crusades were. Like ISIS the crusades were about killing or converting anyone who did not adhere to a very specific form of Christianity. While the most famous crusades were against Muslims they were also against Pagans, Jews, Eastern Christians, Cathars, other Catholics etc.
Nobody argues crusades were not violent. But they were a response to 4 centuries on invasions, occupation, forceful conversion, murder, rape and enslaving of Christians by muslims. All these practices continue to this very day.
Try to name one land where crusades took place that was not Christian before it became muslim.
Nobody argues crusades were not violent. But they were a response to 4 centuries on invasions, occupation, forceful conversion, murder, rape and enslaving of Christians by muslims. All these practices continue to this very day.
Try to name one land where crusades took place that was not Christian before it became muslim.
As I said the crusades were against a lot of different people, not just Muslims. As to lands that the crusades took that were never Christian prior to the crusades, I will name several.
Prussia.
Lithuania.
Estonia.
Poland.
Then there were also crusades against other Christians in Greece, Sicily, Southern France, and Aragon.
Like I said I am surprised how many people don't understand the crusades, there were a lot of them like the Wendish Crusade, the 4th Crusade, the Northern Crusades, the Albigensian crusade, the Aragonese Crusade, etc. that were not about Islam. Not to mention the fact that prior to reaching Constantinople the 1st crusade proceeded to rob and murder all the Jews they could find on their way to modern day Turkey or the fact that most of the "Christian lands" the crusades were trying to "retake" were never Catholic, but rather Eastern Christian whom the Latin Crusaders often oppressed and fought as much as they did Muslims, in fact the first Crusader territory they took on the way to Jerusalem was Edessa, an Armenian Christian city where the Crusaders proceeded to dispose the local rulers and set up their own county. The simple fact is that the crusades were targeted at a whole lot of different people who the Catholic Church had beef with and could hardly be considered a purely Christian against Muslim thing. With that said this is inconvienent to people who like to blame the Muslims for everything, and or like simplistic or easy to understand black and white realities and so it is often ignored.
As I said the crusades were against a lot of different people, not just Muslims. As to lands that the crusades took that were never Christian prior to the crusades, I will name several.
Prussia.
Lithuania.
Estonia.
Poland.
Then there were also crusades against other Christians in Greece, Sicily, Southern France, and Aragon.
Like I said I am surprised how many people don't understand the crusades, there were a lot of them like the Wendish Crusade, the 4th Crusade, the Northern Crusades, the Albigensian crusade, the Aragonese Crusade, etc. that were not about Islam. Not to mention the fact that prior to reaching Constantinople the 1st crusade proceeded to rob and murder all the Jews they could find on their way to modern day Turkey or the fact that most of the "Christian lands" the crusades were trying to "retake" were never Catholic, but rather Eastern Christian whom the Latin Crusaders often oppressed and fought as much as they did Muslims, in fact the first Crusader territory they took on the way to Jerusalem was Edessa, an Armenian Christian city where the Crusaders proceeded to dispose the local rulers and set up their own county. The simple fact is that the crusades were targeted at a whole lot of different people who the Catholic Church had beef with and could hardly be considered a purely Christian against Muslim thing. With that said this is inconvienent to people who like to blame the Muslims for everything, and or like simplistic or easy to understand black and white realities and so it is often ignored.
In all your history lesson you named no "land where crusades took place that was not Christian before it became muslim". I can only repeat my statement:
Nobody argues crusades were not violent. But they were a response to 4 centuries on invasions, occupation, forceful conversion, murder, rape and enslaving of Christians by muslims. All these practices continue to this very day.
Obama lectured us, in a speech about ISIS, not 'get on our high horse' about Islamic terrorism and invoked the medieval crusades because bush once used the term?
that still makes less than zero sense.
Oh, I didn't realize that by crusade, Bush only meant a parade with flowered floats.
In all your history lesson you named no "land where crusades took place that was not Christian before it became muslim". I can only repeat my statement:
Nobody argues crusades were not violent. But they were a response to 4 centuries on invasions, occupation, forceful conversion, murder, rape and enslaving of Christians by muslims. All these practices continue to this very day.
Can't fix willful ignorance. Except to say if the crusades were just in response to 4 centuries of invasions and occupations, by muslims, why did then end up in the Baltic? Were the Livonians or Old Prussians invading and occupying Christian lands? Were the Greeks in 13th century Constantinople Muslim? How about those Cathars in Southern France were they secretly Muslims who were occupying and conquering christian lands?
I don't see the big deal. The Crusades were base on intolerance, and the Jihads are based on intolerance. Both religions further bigotry and self-delusion among the dumbest and most violent in their ranks. I think Islam is worse, but both do it. Look at the KKK and the Nazis and Westboro Baptist weirdos.
And it was wrong of the Christian armies to slaughter Jews and other who didn't have a dog in the fight--nobody is disputing this, OR the barbarism of the conflict. What the issue we have with the president is that he failed to make a good comparison. The fact that he says "terrible deeds were committed in the name of Christ", but can't bring himself to say that ISIS "is Islamic and a terrorist organization" is a double standard. Furthermore, he had to go back quite far in time to make an equivalence between Islam and Christianity. Very few will argue his point that the Crusades and the other stuff he mentioned was bad--but the issue is that today, it's Islam that is causing most problems in the world in terms of terrorism and radicalization. Even hateful (and hated) Christian groups like Westboro Baptist Church aren't beheading gays or non-believers. It's not Christianity, Judaism, paganism, Sikhism, Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Wicca, or anything else that we're seeing the bulk majority of terrorism from. It's Islam. This is not to say that ALL Muslims are evil, and it's not to say that there aren't crazy people in all of the other religions I mentioned. But there is something to be said of a religion (which isn't even the biggest in the world) that continuously spreads more violence and hatred in 2015 than any other.
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