Quote:
Originally Posted by LJ19
I don't understand why Christianity is pitted against Islam to make it seem superior, however.
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FWIW, I understand your point. I think 'critiques' of Islam would be more effective if they were offered from the perspective of Muslims. Many, if not most, belief systems can be dinged to death from an outsider's point of view and, arguably, can be dismissed by insiders.
IMO, asking repeatedly the questions: "Does your belief system
really work for you? Are you happier for being a [fill in the blank]?" are ways to get people to talk about their own experiences, in their own terms.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LJ19
Wouldn't the crusaders be described as "callous to human suffering" also ?
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Judge for yourself.
The papal bull issued by Pope Innocent II that sanctioned the Knights Templar as "defenders of the Catholic Church and assailants of Christ's foes" is available
here. It is noteworthy that their freedom of action is not restricted to Muslims but also includes other Christians as well as pagans.
The papal bull issued by Pope Eugene III to start the second crusade is available
here.
IMO, a point to remember is that the notion of 'crusading,' in practice, described military operations over a wide geographic area against diverse groups of peoples. As a leading scholar on the topic recently told a
(presumably) attentive audience.
Quote:
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Crusades were penitential war pilgrimages, fought not only in the Levant and throughout eastern Mediterranean region, but also along the Baltic shoreline, in North Africa, the Iberian Penninsula, Poland, Hungary and the Balkans and even within Western Europe. They were proclaimed not only against Muslims but also against paga Wends, Balts and Lithuanians, shamanist Mongols, Orthodox Russians and Greeks, Cathar and Hussite heretics, and those Catholics whom the church deemed to be its enemies.*
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* Jonathan Riley-Smith,
The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam, the Bampton Lectures in America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 9.