budder said:
adcurt said:
Budder; A little unnecessary. I was chiming in to an earllier post... but what would drive you to be a dick to people you've never met, but could come into contact with in the future? Try to make friends.
Perhaps your post would make a little more sense in the context of another post, but since I wasn't given that other post, there was no reason for me to reference it when reading yours. I think that is a reasonable misunderstanding. Taken out of context, as I had read your post, it is full of flaws. I have my doubts as to whether those are mitigated or go away completely in context, so feel free to provide some support for your claims. I don't really care what you think of me, only that both sides get represented in this argument. I know none of you will believe me, but if I were on a Islam-centric board, I would be defending Christianity. I'm not pro- either religion, just pro-logical arguments.
Are you inferring that I made up some history for kicks? That's a pathetic dig when you can just look it up. It isn't secret information.
So, here's some more info on the invasions that led up to the Crusades. You're arguing with me has now made it a relevant topic to the thread. You can do your own fact checking. I don't owe you anything and I have no reason to make stuff up.
---
In 635 AD, that is three years after Mohammed’s death, that the armies of the Crescent Moon invaded Christian Syria and Christian Palestine. It was in 638 that they took Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre. It was in 640 that after conquering Persia and Armenia and Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq, they invaded Christian Eqypt and overran Christian Maghreb. That is, the present Tunisia and Algeria and Morocco. It was in 668 that for the first time they attacked Constantinople and laid a siege that would last five years. It was in 711 that after crossing the Strait of Gibraltar that they landed in the most Catholic Iberian Peninsula, took possession of Portugal and Spain where despite the Pelayos and the Cid Campeadors and the other warriors engaged in the Reconquest they remained for no less than eight centuries. (And whoever believes in the myth of "peaceful coexistence that marked the relationships between the conquered and the conquerors" should reread the stories of the burned convents and monasteries, of the profaned churches, of the raped nuns, of the Christian or Jewish women abducted to be locked away in their harems. He should ponder on the crucifixions of Cordoba, the hangings of Granada, the beheadings of Toledo and Barcelona, of Seville and Zamora. (The beheadings of Seville, ordered by Mutamid: the King who used those severed heads, heads of Jews and Christians, to adorn his palace. The beheadings of Zamora, ordered by Almanzor: the vizier who was called the patron-of-the-philosophers, the greatest leader Islamic Spain ever produced...). Invoking the name of Jesus meant instant execution. Crucifixion, of course, or decapitation or hanging or impalement. Ringing a bell, the same. Wearing green, the color exclusive to Islam, also. And when a Muslim passed by, every Jew and Christian was obliged to step aside. To bow. And mind to the Jew or the Christian who dared react to the insults of a Muslim. As for the much-flaunted detail that the infidel-dogs were not obliged to convert to Islam, not even encouraged to do so. Do you know why they were not? Because those who converted to Islam did not pay taxes. Those who refused, on the contrary, did.)
From Spain, in 721 AD, they passed into the no less Catholic France. Led by Abd al-Rahman, the Governor of Andalusia, they crossed the Pyrenees and took Narbonne. There they massacred the entire male population, enslaved all the women and children, then proceeded towards Carcassonne. From Carcassonne they went to Nimes where they slaughtered nuns and friars. From Nimes they went to Lyons and Dijon where they pillaged every single church… And do you know how long their advance in France lasted? Eleven years. In waves. In 731 a wave of three hundred and eighty thousand infantry and sixteen thousand calvalry reached Bordeaux which surrendered at once. Then from Bordeaux it moved to Poitiers, from Poitiers it moved to Tours and, if in 732 Charles Martel had not won the battle of Poitiers-Tours, today the French too would dance the flamenco. In 827 they landed in Sicily, another target of their voraciousness. Massacring, beheading, impaling, crucifying as usual, they conquered Syracuse and Taormina then Messina and Palermo, and in three-quarters of a century (which was what it took to break the proud resistance of the Sicilians) they Islamized the island. They stayed for over two centuries, in Sicily: until they were cleared out by the Normans. But in 836 they landed at Brindisi. In 840, at Bari. And they Islamized Puglia too. In 841 they landed at Ancona. Then from the Adriatic they moved back to the Tyrrhenian Sea and in the summer of 846 landed at Ostia. They sacked it, burned it, and moving upriver from the mouth of the Tiber they reached Rome. They laid siege to it and one night they burst in. They plundered the basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul, sacked both, and to get rid of them Pope Sergius II had to stipulate an annual tribute of twenty-five thousand pieces of silver. To prevent further attacks, his successor Leo IV had to erect the Leonine Walls.
Having left Rome, though, they descended on Campania. They stayed there for seventy years destroying Montecassino and tormenting Salerno. A city where, at one time, they amused themselves by sacrificing a nun’s virginity every night. Do you know where? On the cathedral’s altar. In 898 they landed in Provence. To be precise, in present-day Saint-Tropez. They settled there, and in 911 crossed the Alps to enter Piedmont. They occupied Turin and Casale, set fire to all of the churches and libraries, killed thousands of Christians, then went to Switzerland. Here they reached the Graubunden valley and the lake of Geneva. Then, put off by the snow, did an about-turn and returned to the warm climate of Provence. In 940 they occupied Toulon where they settled.
Today it’s fashionable to beat our breasts over the Crusades. To blame the West for the Crusades. To see the Crusades as an injustice committed to the detriment of the poor-innocent-Muslims. But before being a series of expeditions to regain possession of the Holy Sepulchre that is of Jerusalem, the Crusades were the response to four centuries of invasion and occupations.
Flame on, Buddy. And don't use such big word in your posts. You don't wear them well.
