Pope: If I Speak Of Islamic Violence, I Must Speak Of Catholic Violence

Hopeless springs to mind when thinking of Pope Francis. He is unable to see the truth or is afraid to speak it.

He seeks a kind of martyrdom.

For us.

All you really need to know about Islam is about its founder Mohammed. A less admirable person you would be hard pressed to find. Yet Mohammed is held as an example to follow, the paragon of the ideal Muslim.

This Pope is seriously misguided. I wonder what he’ll say when an attempt on his life is foiled?

If then “Islam” is only and solely a religion, why the “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria”–or if you’re the president, ISIL the “Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant”? (Although it is completely baffling to hear otherwise educated people to claim that there is nothing “Islamic” about ISIS/ISIL, when it is right there smack-dab in the name.)

Second, Islam has no central authority, like the pope. Every iman is his own pope, and can ban chess, tell followers who to vote for, and even ban ISIS. With so many cooks in the kitchen, it isn’t surprising the stew is such a mess.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3410448/Now-Saudi-Arabia-bans-CHESS-Muslim-cleric-outlaws-game-waste-time-encourages-gambling.html

http://www.timesofisrael.com/gaza-imam-vote-for-hamas-or-youre-a-heretic/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/muslim-clerics-condemn-terrorism_us_566adfa1e4b009377b249dea

Sadly, this Pope is a liar. May God helps him and us.
Marana tha.

The more I learn about Islam, the less patience I have for this sort of thing. Now, politicians — and popes — may have good reason for saying such things. Diplomacy often requires speaking as if things that you want to happen are happening. And of course there are millions of Muslims who are not in any way violent people.
Sebastian Gorka’s new book “Defeating Jihad” is a must-read. It’s short, matter-of-fact (by which I mean non-polemical, unlike most such books), and a great overview that tells you all you need to know. There is much more to know. But what you especially NEED to know about Islam is that it comes from a warlord (Mohammed) and its main message is that Islam is the one true religion for all mankind, so all men need to submit to it… no questions asked. How violent the requirements for submission are have varied over time, but submission IS required. Islam is political and spiritual, there is no separating them. Over the centuries many groups and peoples have moved to a more spiritual kind of Islam — so it definitely IS possible, because it exists now and has existed before. However, every time this has happened, Islam has undergone violent reform returning it to its roots. It is undergoing such a reform right now. Terrorist violence is not an essential or original part of Islam, this is TRUE. But influential imams have said it is not only permitted by Islam, it is now REQUIRED by Islam. And Islam is a religion of requirements.
So yes, a more “spiritual,” less temporal kind of Islam is possible. But history shows that it is not likely to prevail, because it never has. If it is in the interest of the rest of the world for it to prevail this time, it’s going to take a lot of work on everyone’s part and a lot of bravery on the part of so-called “moderates,” who are literally risking their lives because the vast majority if Muslims do not accept them. This is the reality of the situation. Diplomacy is one thing — we all know it is a kind of falsehood used to bring about a desired future. But people who think that is already true have their heads in the sand. It isn’t, and its becoming true for any large part of the world and any significant length of time is a long shot.

“Pope-on-the-plane” I like that.

Ramspace: Well said.

The major difficulty is determining what is truly done in the name of religion and what is thrown in as being in the name of religion. Just because a Muslim commits a crime doesn’t make it a crime in the name of Islam. Same for Christians. However, when terrorists are claiming responsibility and using the term “Islam” or “Islamic” in their terrorist group’s name, one can probably bet that religion is being used to justify the actions. You can read the Koran or Bible or any book (fairy tales included) and make a case that these incite and/or condone violence. Progressives refuse to say Islam has a thing to do with the current problem, but so far all participants seem to be pledging their loyalty to Allah very loudly. This is not a small group of mentally ill people who develop delusions of grandeur and go on a killing spree. These people know what they are doing and participate voluntarily in many cases. As Briggs noted, if progressives continue to insist religion has nothing to do with this, one would think that simply enrages the terrorists even further as they percieve they are being mocked and made fun of for saying their religion is involved. Isn’t that like painting a giant target on one’s back?

Has anyone announced why every major Western power seems intent on showing who can be more “humane” by importing as many believers as possible? Why has everyone gone so completely over the top with these projects that they’re willing to continue even in the face of increasing internal terror activities? What can these politicians be gaining through these actions that make them worthwhile?

Of course Christians have people (luckily, very few) who kill because of their understanding of Christian teaching. Do I need to remind people about the Army of God? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_God_(United_States)

All the ‘People of the Book’ – Christians, Jews and Muslims – have a religious text which clearly mandates holy war. Most no longer interpret their texts this way. But to consider religion as being the REASON for these attacks is to miss the point. The reason is not religion, but culture.

If a Westerner feels wronged, he has a state-mandated process to follow, whereby the police will investigate and charge, and a public prosecutor will take a case before a court. This is actually a comparatively new process. Throughout most of our history, if you were wronged, it would be up to you, or your family to seek recompense (according to a standard set of penalties specified by the local ruler). And many recent immigrants come from a culture where that is still the norm. Hence the ‘honour killings, for instance.

If a young Arab feels that the Western military has wronged his people, or, perhaps, killed one of his relatives, he is culturally less inclined to do what a westerner would do – engage a lawyer and brief the press. He is more inclined to see it as an honourable family requirement to personally attack the West to avenge the slight. He will shout ‘Allahu Akbar!’ as he attacks – not because he is religiously motivated, but because a Muslim should die with this phrase on his lips. It’s the exact equivalent of an IRA terrorist going to confessional before ambushing an Army patrol – you need to go to Heaven as pure as possible.

No one seems to even consider this reason as a possibility. Probably because the Liberal Left are so self-obsessed (racist, perhaps?) that they actually think that ‘Multi-Culturalism’ means lots of black, brown, yellow and white people all sitting in a bar in Islington sipping a Sauvignon Blanc and deciding where to celebrate Kwanzaa. In fact, it means sets of people living with others whose customs and lifestyles they each mutually find immoral, repulsive and evil.

Good luck with that as a policy.

Which is why we call them ‘experts’, correct?

While the tongue aim at other can be injurious to others
Most of the damage is to oneself (…rubber…glue…?)

Proverbs 18:21 – Death and life [are] in the power of the tongue: …

1 Peter 3:10 – For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:

Proverbs 15:1 – A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.

Proverbs 10:19 – In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin: but he that refraineth his lips [is] wise.

Ephesians 4:29 – Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth,…

Matthew 12:36-37 – But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.

Proverbs 12:18 – There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword…

James 3:6 – And the tongue [is] a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.

James 1:26 – If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion [is] vain.

Proverbs 15:28 – The heart of the righteous studieth to answer: but the mouth of the wicked poureth out evil things.

Proverbs 15:4 – A wholesome tongue [is] a tree of life: but perverseness therein [is] a breach in the spirit.

Philippians 2:14 – Do all things without murmurings and disputings:

Proverbs 17:27 – He that hath knowledge spareth his words…

James 3:8 – But the tongue can no man tame; [it is] an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

Proverbs 25:15 – By long forbearing is a prince persuaded, and a soft tongue breaketh the bone.

Proverbs 13:3 – He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life: [but] he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.

James 3:5 – Even so the tongue is a little member, and boasteth great things. Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth!

The Koran contains over 100 verses calling for violence against unbelievers. Unbelievers are supposed to be conquered, killed or converted, whichever occurs first.

If a Westerner feels wronged, he has a state-mandated process to follow, whereby the police will investigate and charge, and a public prosecutor will take a case before a court. This is actually a comparatively new process. Throughout most of our history, if you were wronged, it would be up to you, or your family to seek recompense

The Romans called this latter the accusatio and while it continues to be the mode for civil cases, it has, as you say, proved inadequate for criminal prosecutions. Hence, in the Late Republic, a new method was devised in which the State took charge of both investigation and prosecution — as the intro to Law and Order reminds us. This second method was called inquisitio.

Just over 70 years ago, Christians murdered 6 million Jews. Given the popularity of Social Darwinism among the Right in the West today, that could certainly happen again.

JMJ

Zwemer himself goes on to criticize the life of Mohammed by the standards, first, of the Old and New Testaments, both of which Mohammed acknowledged as Divine revelation; second, by the pagan morality of his Arabian compatriots; lastly, by the new law of which he pretended to be the “divinely appointed medium and custodian”. According to this author, the prophet was false even to the ethical traditions of the idolatrous brigands among whom he lived, and grossly violated the easy sexual morality of his own system. After this, it is hardly necessary to say that, in Zwemer’s opinion, Mohammed fell very far short of the most elementary requirements of Scriptural morality. Quoting Johnstone, Zwemer concludes by remarking that the judgment of these modern scholars, however harsh, rests on evidence which “comes all from the lips and the pens of his own devoted adherents … And the followers of the prophet can scarcely complain if, even on such evidence, the verdict of history goes against him”. – Catholic Encyclopedia > M > Mohammed and Mohammedanism

Nazi Germany, if that is what you are suggesting, was openly anti-Christian—and indeed, desired the subordination of the church to the state.

Well, anon, just over 70 years ago, Christians murdered 6 million Jews. Are you arguing that fact?

JMJ

@Jersey Mcjones: Always go to the real causes of events; to, as they say, the “power behind the throne”. “[T]hose who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” are the ones responsible not only for the number of Jews you claim were murdered just over 70 years ago, but also for the two World Wars, numerous other wars, and 20-66 million [among them many Christians] murdered by the Bolsheviks. Perhaps you will care to research who the Bolsheviks were.

JMJ: You failed to enumerate how many atheists were involved in the process. An oversight on your part, I’m sure.

JMJ: People whom you perceive as Christians may have committed atrocities, but that does not make them true Christians. I assume, from your easy usage of this example, that you also believe Islamists have committed hundreds of acts of terrorism? Historically, possibly even more deaths. So let’s hear the “Islamists kill millions” listing from your database. For that matter, how about a breakdown of all religions and all atheists throughout history. You seem have a very extensive database. Perhaps you could share and enlighten us. Since this is a statistics blog, can you include your criteria for attributing the deaths to a specific religion or lack thereof? That could be interesting too. Thanks.

Well, anon, just over 70 years ago, Christians murdered 6 million Jews.

Actually, they were murdered by Nazis, a political philosophy overtly hostile to Christianity.

“We are the rollicking Hitler Youth;
We have no need of Christain truth;
No evil old priest these ties can sever;
We’re Hitler’s children now and ever.”
— Baldur von Sirach

THEN: The crusades were a series of holy wars called by popes with the promise of indulgences for those who fought in them and directed against external and internal enemies of Christendom for the recovery of Christian property or in defense of the Church or Christian people.

NOW: Jihad is a series of holy battles called by Imams with the promise of rewards in the afterlife for those who fight them and directed against external and internal enemies of Islam for the recovery of Muslim property or in defense of Islam or Muslims.

I don’t agree with his economics, but I do agree with Keynes’ view of the Koran
(and Das Kapital)

“My feelings about Das Kapital are the same as my feelings about the Koran. I know it is historically important and I know that many people, not all of whom are idiots, find it a sort of Rock of Ages and continuing inspiration. Yet, when I look into it, it is inexplicable that it can have this effect. “

YOS. Thank you. I was suggesting that it was the non-Christian Nazis–the ones who of the totalitarian ideology–who desired to de-christianize Germany–who were committing the horrible, awful, venal, atrocious murders. The Nazi state could not and did not “co-exist”. Sound familiar?

@Ken

When you have to go back one thousand years to find an aberration of Christianity that can be compared to “business as usual” in Islam, it’s obvious that your case is very weak.

You could find equivalence between Islam and the crimes of communism only going back to XX century or even in our days.

Actually, the crusades were mass pilgrimages, and indulgences were offered to all pilgrims. They were summoned initially to recover Anatolia for the Byzantines, after they had lost it as a consequence of Manzikert. They were never called “holy wars” except by modern 19th century types caught up in the twilight of colonial-imperialism and hence inclined to see the affair as an earlier attempt at doing what Europeans had been in the 19th century doing.

More recent document analysis, less glamorous than Theory, tells us that about 150,000 pilgrims took the pledge, mostly women, the elderly, and the poor. About 40,000 actually marched east, though not all went all the way; the remainder were “those who stayed behind and prayed.”

The pilgrimage to Jerusalem was costly and dangerous. The danger was why there was an indulgence given. (All pilgrimages were dangerous, even those within Europe.) The cost, up to 5x annual income, was why lacklands and second sons did not make up the pilgrimage except in the retinue of a great lord.

The vow was to pray at the church of the Holy Sepulcher. Once they had done so, most of the crusaders went home.

In the early days of Islam it was the pagans that were executed; Jews & Christians — believing in the same god as the Muslims, and, hailing from the same original founder (Abraham) — were seen as merely a bit immature in worshiping the right god but not being quite refined & a bit behind/flawed by not [yet] advancing to full & proper faith based on Muhammad. They were partly right & wrong about their faith…but right where it most counted — they believed the same (the “right”/”proper”) god.

Part of what makes the contemporary Islamist-extremist-based-terrorism different (and where the Pope is somewhat on track) is that the criteria of extremist Islamist faith has shifted
from a belief in the right god (Judaism, Christianity and Islam are agreed on this– they all worship the same deity, the God of Abraham)
to basing jihad on belief/lack-of-belief on the place of Muhammad, and things associated therewith.

This is observed in many of the statements reported of suicide terrorists — shouting “Allahu Akbar!” as they embark on killing so-called [to them] “infidels” (unbelievers) of Allah … who are in fact Jews & Christians that DO believe in Allah (if by a different label, etc). These warped fanatics fail to appreciate they are in fact killing fellow believer in Allah, in Allah’s name…having improperly juxtaposed & combined belief in Allah (God) with belief in Muhammad & his [lack of] relationship with God.

Part of what we may be witnessing is a symptom of a developing evolution (if allowed to persist) in Islamic [some sects anyway] belief via which Muhammad will become deified — where “unbelief” in him, linked perversely as it is with Allah (“God”) now, loses the linkage when Muhammad & Allah become one & the same — the real father & son deity (aka Jesus, who is claimed by the [so-called] “mythicists” to have been just another preacher [a belief shared with Islam], or, never really existed).

YOS : good. Now do KEN.

Oops– that was fast.

@JMJ

You missed the killing of other Christians by said Christians. In particular, Eastern Orthodox Christians by Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians.

You also missed the killing of Atheists by said Christians. But that’s ok as this is not (yet?) part of Atheist dogma.

YOS – You’re trying to re-write history & create a very false impression of the Crusades by emphasizing the pilgrimages and playing a semantics game with the timing of the use of a label (“holy wars”). That cherry-picked reporting constitutes, by many definitions, a lie. That presentation certainly conflicts with the Catholic Church’s statements…

The ugly fact is that the Catholic Church, its Popes, overtly sponsored the part of the Crusades that involved killing & pillaging in the name of God. History records that the “4th Crusade,” on Constantinople, 1095, included a ravaging of not only Muslims, but also Jews and other Christians — for which Pope John Paul II apologized publicly/internationally.

Deal with it, don’t to try to paint a pretty face on the Church’s ugly history by emphasizing a cherry-picked harmless facet presented out of context in such a way as to persuade the uninformed & those too lazy to do a cursory fact check that reality was something other than what it was. Those pilgrimages were enabled by force of arms that even the Catholic Church concedes were inappropriate [not even trying to hint it didn’t occur] – here’s the Vatican website & a reference to recent Pope’s apologies:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04543c.htm

http://www.vaticanstate.va/content/vaticanstate/en/stato-e-governo/struttura-del-governatorato/presidenza/presidente-emerito/2007/10-maggio-2007.paginate.3.html

This presentation from the Vatican site includes mention of the 30 Years’ War between Catholics & Protestants, conceding the Protestants basically won – the Catholic Church lost its influence & ability to impose by force its view of proper faith. Or, quoting the Vatican’s website:

“… [the] end to the Thirty Years’ War between Catholic and Protestant sovereigns … established the principle “Cuius regio eius et religio” (in other words, the religion of a state is to be that of the sovereign).”

emphasizing the pilgrimages …constitutes, by many definitions, a lie.

It is difficult for Late Moderns to understand that earlier eras conceptualized things differently. Pilgrims were often armed and this pilgrimage set out with the intent of winning back lands recently lost by the Roman Empire. So, of course, they expected to fight battles. Even ordinary pilgrimages were fraught: In 1065, when Bishop Gunther of Bamberg led 7000 pilgrims to the Holy Land, only 2000 returned to the Germanies — after a harrowing siege and rescue by a friendly Fatimid emir.

The pilgrimage was imagined as an errand of mercy and charity. Everyone taking part took a pilgrim’s vow to visit the Holy Sepulcher. Because of the great expense and hardships of the journey, each pilgrim was granted a remission of sin — just as any pilgrim to any shrine would. His lands were placed under the protection of the Church until his return. Additional vows dealt with fasting, abstinence from sex, particular devotions to be performed along the way, etc. A pilgrim’s cross was sewn to the shoulder of his tunic.

Armed pilgrimages were not a novelty, given the unsettled times. But this time around, the pilgrims were not only armed but trained in the use of arms. And there were a lot of them. Their oath was sworn to God, not to the pope or to any secular leader. In fact, none of the “cross-bearers” was actually in command. There was no hierarchy, no organization. It was a mass of several thousands of armed pilgrims heading more or less in the same direction with more or less the same purpose. Lords among the pilgrims could expect to command their own vassals, but no one else. They would elect a commander-in-chief as was customary, but the post was largely honorary and like any large feudal levy there would be much time spent negotiating issues of precedence and honor. No feudal lord worth his fief was going to take stinking orders from a peer! It was a very libertarian era, in a way.

The de-empasizing of the pilgrimage aspects of the “First Crusade” amounts to a lie, in that it retroactively projects Modern attitudes and categories of thought onto the Other.

The ugly fact is that the Catholic Church, its Popes, overtly sponsored the part of the Crusades that involved killing & pillaging in the name of God.

It’s kind of hard to liberate Byzantine lands from Turkish tribesmen without fighting battles. A three-day pillage was permitted by the rules of engagement in those days if the city resisted a siege. Hence, some cities were pillaged and others were not. It was mostly in the name of the Byzantine Empire, however.

History records that the “4th Crusade,” on Constantinople, 1095, included a ravaging of not only Muslims, but also Jews and other Christians — for which Pope John Paul II apologized publicly/internationally.

It is the postmodern custom to apologize for things dead forebears have done. But you evidently are unfamiliar with the circumstances of the starving crusader army, the promise of gold, provisions, and transportation made by a nephew if the Franks would help put his uncle back on the throne, and how after successfully doing so they were stiffed and shut outside the city to starve.

This presentation from the Vatican site includes mention of the 30 Years’ War between Catholics & Protestants

Is that the same Thirty Years War in which the Pope was financing the Protestant side via Catholic France? The princes did not secede from the Empire because they wanted to be Protestant. The became Protestant because they wanted to secede from the Empire. In particular, they wanted to subordinate the church to the State, and achieved this in the “cuius regio” doctrine, or as some might say, the Adopt-a-heretic strategy of creating domesticated churches.

The Thirty Years Was is far more explicable as a conflict between House Bourbon and House Stark, which wound up with both Catholic and Protestant princes on both sides.

Does this site always get invaded by apologists of Mohammedans?

And the Commies in the Soviet Union with China have a death toll that certainly rivals the Nazis. Neither were Christian, instead they were progressives.

From the horse’s mouth:
“An editorial titled ‘Why We Hate You and Why We Fight You’ takes aim at Westerners and ‘apostate “Imams” in the West’ who refuse to define ISIS’ motivation as being Islamic.”

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/08/01/isis-details-why-hate-in-new-magazine.html

YOS,
“they were murdered by Nazis, a political philosophy overtly hostile to Christianity. ”

But the bulk of the German Army WAS Christian, Catholic or Protestant and chaplains accompanied the Army.
The historian Paul Johnson reports that a total of 2 chaplains complained about the killing of the Jewish children on the Eastern Front which they witnessed.

I’ve always found it bizarre that people seem to find calls to war in the Old Testament. (I don’t think the New Testament particularly needs defense, considering the words of Christ were pretty clear.) I see in the Old Testament a consistent narrative: God is strong to do His Will. And thus the narrative centers around this strong God; One who carried Israel out of slavery, lead by His prophet and not a warlord, even directly by a column of smoke and fire, and slew Pharaoh’s forces himself; One who handed the land of Canaan to the Israelites not merely through their own force, but by tearing down the walls of Jericho himself, and by holding the sun and moon in place; One who defends His people later by intentionally reducing the Israelite forces from 22,000 to 300 specifically to demonstrate that it was NOT their military might which has saved them; One who slew *with his own hand* 185,000 soldiers of Sennacherib to impress upon Israel the lesson that God, not military force, is their strength and their shield. And all of this to remain faithful to the promise to render to Abraham to give him a Son. Even in these sections of Scripture relevant to war, the Christian God places himself as the prime actor in achieving His Will.

The Old Testament clearly teaches against placing our faith and hope in military actions and worldly conquest, but instead in God, who is our Mighty Fortress in the words of that most excellent of hymns. This is in stark contrast to the Islamic god, who seems to be too pallid and frail to do his own will, relying upon and demanding the strength of mere mortals to bring him his deserved glory in this world, as if he cannot even judge a man without a sword in the hand of a zealot.

Hey, Hitler praised Islam.

After a series of quotations from the Koran, is this: “Yet Pope Francis, God bless him, says the violent interpretation of Islam is wrong, and therefore we must conclude that those Muslims who read these texts and conclude that violence against non-Muslims is warranted, are not true Muslims.”

And now it makes sense, given that true Christians, it appears, should not be reading and heeding Bible text.

Much of this discussion seems to be missing the point…

There’s no evidence that Hitler was implementing a philosophical imperative or divine command during the Holocaust.

Stalin & his fellow communists claim to be implementing a philosophical imperative – purging false and weakening beliefs – when implementing his purges, at least against some groups.

Islamic conquerors are implementing a divine imperative when they slay & conquer in the name of Islam.

The ancient Israelites were following a divine imperative when they conquered Canaan.

The Crusaders do not seem to have a divine imperative for the crusades, though they did see themselves as reconquering what had been taken from their friends and protecting them.

However, discussions of the morality of the Crusades, or Stalin, or the ancient Israelites, or Hitler, have one thing in common: they are theoretical. The events actually happened, but they happened in the past. They may be interesting examples when we are trying to evaluate our own moral responses, but only a divine & eternal being – whose existence atheists deny – can “do” anything with those people.

They also mostly believed they were in the right – their behaviour was “true for them”. You might disagree, but your disagreement doesn’t count for much at all. The same goes for Islamic conquerors – they believe they are “in the right”, and they show no likelihood of stopping to canvas your opinions before carrying out their plans. But unlike the aforementioned groups, their plans extend into the now and the future. It’s a worry that people would rather extend accusations about dead threats than respond to live ones.

Jersey McJones Your ignorance is monumental. Hitler was a progressive as were the Nazis not only did they kill six million Jews but another 6 million undesirables. Now you add in what Mao, Stalin and other on the left you end up with 200,000,000 million killed and the only common religion in those numbers are the devotion to the left. So far the left is far deadlier than any religion, we can only hope that the Muslim don’t try to break the left record all though the Muslims have been at it a lot longer. You have to love the left they ignore true evil and complain loudest about things that might slow down their slaughter of their fellow man. They screeam the loudest about those that justify killing their fellow man, like global warming. After it the left that says to save the would we need to eliminate nearly seven billion people to save the planet. Somehow the planet will survive just fine with us or without us, the only problem without us there will be no one to worry about poor mother earth, funny she seems to have functioned just fine without us for well over five billion years and we have been here a short 200,000. As for the Pope, I believe there a special place in hell waiting for him as with all leftist the question is what about you Jersey McJones. Of I assume you are like most leftist you on religion is government and believe there is nothing after death, I sincerely hope the left is wrong, funny the left to most part don’t believe in hell yet they do their damnedest to make hell on earth!

the bulk of the German Army WAS Christian, Catholic or Protestant and chaplains accompanied the Army.

The bulk of the German army were not Nazis, but ordinary soldiers caught up in war. They had chaplains for the same reason the Allied army was mainly Christian and had chaplains; viz., for the comforting of the soldiers. You may think as you like, but the Nazi officials were under no delusion regarding who their enemies were, as captured documents showed. About one-third of Catholic priests wound up in the camps or hauled up in front of the “People’s Courts.”

Chaplains at the front were in poor position to complain about anything. As journalist-turned-historian Paul Johnson put it:

“Again, [Hitler] told [the] Gauleiters on 29 May 1944 that before the end of the year all the Jews would be dead:

“You know all about it now, and you had better keep it all to yourselves.
Perhaps at some later, some very much later period we might consider
whether to tell the German people a little more about this. But I think we had
better not! It is we here who have shouldered the responsibility, for action as
well as for an idea, and I think we had better take this secret with us into our
graves.”

Hence security around the death-camps was elaborate. The wife of
a German officer, who at a confused railway junction got onto a
death-train by mistake, was ordered to the ovens nonetheless so that
she could not relate what she had seen.

@Mactoul

Almost the entiere German army consisted of men, but there’s nobody complaining about sexism either. And most of them were young, and their victims old, but not one complaint about an war between the generations.

YOS: “It is difficult for Late Moderns to understand that earlier eras conceptualized things differently. Pilgrims were often armed and this pilgrimage set out with the intent of winning back lands recently lost by the Roman Empire.”

Why didn’t the late modern authoring remarks including the term “pilgrim” articulate that term in Late Modern context & meaning for the Late Modern audience being addressed? Because he was trying to put a particular type of ‘politically correct’ spin on the image presented, that’s why. Called out on the failure of that to work comes the revisionist definitions…but that fails:

YOS: “… The pilgrimage was imagined as an errand of mercy and charity. Everyone taking part took a pilgrim’s vow to visit the Holy Sepulcher. … … the circumstances of the starving crusader army, the promise of gold, provisions, and transportation made by a nephew if the Franks would help put his uncle back on the throne, and how after successfully doing so they were stiffed and shut outside the city to starve.”

Though trying to maintain a rosy wholesome picture of events at least the truth comes out, a concession that the Crusades included robust “pilgrims” on an “errand of mercy” … and that errand included the quest for gold (booty) and to win back a throne (power) – pretty banal, selfish motives, those are. And that with Papal consent no less.

YOS’ remarks about post-modern apologies as a current trend, and the mournful tone regarding the failed quest for booty & power (“they were stiffed” and left “to starve” – ‘oh those poor Crusaders’!) makes one wonder if, even after conceding the corrupt & opportunistic nature of [too] much of the Crusades, he really ‘gets it.’

Thus, the point remains & is reinforced – so many gravitating to this site (besides the host) endeavor to present a cherry-picked “happy face” on certain themes to create a false image…those themes invariably associated with a particular view of religion…and that view is repeatedly proven false. Rather than accept the facts, all of’m, evasion, denial, ad hominem, etc. come out with predictable regularity.

One must ask oneself:

Is a religion, or religious viewpoint, that requires one to first lie to & delude oneself into accepting a particular false belief a religion worth having?

that errand included the quest for gold (booty) and to win back a throne

That was certainly the stance taken by the Marxist historians in the late 19th century. But those who went were by and large already in possession of gold. They had to sell off their properties to raise the funds needed to make the trip in the first place. And for the most part they did not expect to be coming back. Nor did they expect to “win back” a throne. The Byzantine Emperor already had a throne, and their intention was to win back the lands he had lost to the nomad aggressors.

As regards the “fourth crusade,” the facts are as stipulated. The crusaders were lured into helping Alexios Angelos recover the throne for his father Isaac (who had been usurped and blinded by Alexios’ uncle, also named Alexios). Venice had essentially halted its commercial activities for a year to build and man a fleet of ships adequate to transport the entire expedition. But only a fraction of the expected manpower arrived in Venice. Hurting financially from their sacrifices, the Venetians demanded payment in full for the fleet. When the crusaders could not pony up, the Venetians put them in debtors’ prison.

This did not solve the problem though; so the doge proposed that the expedition help Venice recover Zara from the Hungarians. One of the leaders, Simon de Montfort was so outraged at the idea of attacking other Christians that he quit and took his forces home. The Pope sent a message threatening excommunication; but the remaining leadership, now thoroughly in the Doge’s pocket, concealed it from the army, and Zara was taken and sacked, despite the cross banners flown by Zara.

Whereupon, another of the leaders was approached by the aforesaid prince Alexios. If they would help him oust his uncle and restore his father, he would use the Byzantine navy to transport the crusaders to Cairo, which was their original target. He also promised to pay the debt to the Venetians and restore communion with the West. To the medieval mind, that was a romantic offer that could not be refused.
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I don’t know why you think that the fact that the people involved thought of themselves as pilgrims makes them sound like harmless fluffy bunnies. This was a milieu in chaos. (Recall the pilgrimage of Bishop Gunther of Bamberg from which only 20,000 of the original 60,000 returned home.) The old Arab Caliphate had been shattered and Turkish bandits and warlords (under more-or-less nominal Saljuq suzerainty) contested the Near East with the Shi’ite Fatimids of Egypt. Anyone who made pilgrimage to Jerusalem could expect to fight wild nomads along the way or get caught between Turkish and Egyptian armies. What we find hard to believe is that they would go anyway.
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Thus the point remains and is reinforced that too many folk are still in thrall to Runciman’s narrative of the crusades, and are determined to project 19th and 20th century tropes onto the Other. Perhaps they are astonished to discover that the past is another country with different customs, and that no one description fits them all. So when some are discovered to be venal or greedy, they suppose that the whole thing was venal and greedy. But to understand the past we must consider events “as if the Persians might still win” (as Lukacs once said regarding Salamis). That is, we must consider 1098 without precognition of 1204. And 1204 without precognition of events later still.

Dodgy Geezer wrote: “All the ‘People of the Book’ – Christians, Jews and Muslims – have a religious text which clearly mandates holy war. Most no longer interpret their texts this way. But to consider religion as being the REASON for these attacks is to miss the point. The reason is not religion, but culture.”
No, they DON’T. Only one has a religious text which clearly mandates holy war — pages and pages and pages of mandates, which you can clearly and easily read for yourself when you pick one up at any bookstore. The Christian parts of the Bible never, in any place, call for holy war or any other war. Jesus specifically tells people NOT to fight. A major part of the Gospels is the surprisng story that the king of the world didn’t, and never intend to, conquer it with an army. The Jewish scriptures include accounts of previous, limited wars that were commanded by God for certain people to fight against certain other people but never, anywhere, call for general and/or future war. Even at the time of Jesus, they were all stories of long ago and concerned a special area of the world only.
The Koran, OTOH, was written (or recounted) by a warlord who was actually waging a holy war at the time, and calls for general holy war to continue until the entire world is subjugated and under the rule of Islam — which is simultaneously a religion and a government. They are not, in any way, equivalent.

Ken: You don’t understand either Christian or Muslim history, much less their theologies.

Maybe Ken should go watch some of Barack “Affirmative Action” Obama’s speeches saying Islam has nothing to do with terrorism.

Islam and terrorism?

Don’t be silly, they are too busy admiring the child raping, murdering, slaving, wife beating prophet Mohammed. But they do make time to do terrorism as well.