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The Avon Lady · 01-20-07, 02:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bradclark1

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

The Crusades were not about proselytization. And while America has always been a Christian dominated nation, it's promotion of values are and were for the most part Universal and not theological in nature. At least this is what I understood from this book review and what I've always understood about American history.

Quote:

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns of a religious character waged by Christians from 1095-1291, usually sanctioned by the Pope in the name of Christendom,[1] with the goal of recapturing Jerusalem and the sacred "Holy Land" from Muslim rule and originally launched in response to a call from the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine Empire for help against the expansion of the Muslim Seljuq dynasty into Anatolia.[2][3]
The term is also used to describe contemporaneous and subsequent campaigns conducted through the 16th century in territories outside of the Levant [4], usually against pagans, those considered by the Catholic Church to be heretics, and peoples under the ban of excommunication,[2] for a mixture of religious, economic, and political reasons.[5] The traditional numbering scheme for the Crusades includes the nine major expeditions to the Holy Land during the 11th to 13th centuries. Other unnumbered "crusades" continued into the 16th century, lasting until the political and religious climate of Europe was significantly changed during the Renaissance and Reformation.

And in todays radical islam the crusades means to force them to change religion.
We have a military force in the middle east.
To me Oren's take on the middle east in that article is that Bush sent us to
change the middle east to our way of thinking. In that context that would be like the middle east coming to the U.S. to force a conversion over to islam. Our reactin would be obvious.
At least thats my take on this anyway.

No. You've missed the point. America thinks that the ideas of freedom and democracy are universal in nature and do not contradict Islam in essence. America is not attempting to sway Islamic countries to become Christian. America is in vain trying to convince Islamic countries that they can be freedom loving without contradicting their religion. The American government is extremly naive and dangerously so.

Your definition of the Crusades is historically accurate and reflects what I said about the goal of the crusades not to be the proselytization of non-Christians but rather a clergy-sanctioned military reconquest of lands previously under Christian sway and rule, which were overrun by Islamists.