Quote:
Originally posted by Mojo_PeiPei
All true and all valid, but I am a firm believer in "To the victor go all the spoils". Christians lost and tried to get it back, can't blame for trying.
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According to that logic, when the Muslims conquered it, they should have received the "spoils." My point re: the Crusades, though, was larger than strictly territorial and geopolitical. It was this period that was characterized by the selling of indulgences (one of those things that pissed off Martin Luther), where a knight could go to his priest and basically say "Ok, padre, I'm gonna rape, pillage, and burn (in that order) my way across eastern Europe and the Middle East. What's that gonna cost me?" And the priest would name a price, the knight would pay it, and take off to do all those horrid things because God had "told" him it was OK. I was referring to the concept of the church muscular - that anything, no matter how horrid, is okay if you can find someone to tell you that God is on your side. For a more recent reference, try the bombing of abortion clinics. Or, for the Europeans among us, try either Northern Ireland or the Catholic Church's tacit support of Hitler's Holocaust.
It is these things that have no place in America. Will you now attempt to argue that they're not among a host of valid reasons to attempt to keep the extremes of religion away from civil government?