What do you think we need to learn from the crusades to help us live in a more peaceful world?

Question

i cant figure it out.

Answer 1

Wow. How much time do you have?

In a nutshell:

History is nothing if not the narratives of one culture trying to superimpose its culture upon another. Religious differences are often cited as the cause of any given conflict, but the reality is much more complicated, and often can be more accurately seen as conflicts over power, territory or money. And many conflicts have elements of pride, glory, saving face, revenge, personal aggrandizement or even dowtright insanity.

The Crusades encompassed all of these motivations. Many WERE fighting for what they considered religious motivation, but many leaders found it convenient to hide behind that label.

Nothing of lasting consequence results from war, nothing gets truly solved; it simply gets fought over again another day.

When religion is described as the cause of a conflict, it has two particularly nasty aspects. Each side represents itself as obeying and being directly guided by (their) God. And more so than nationalism or colonialism, religion tends to pass through the ages relatively unchanged, so the history, and therefore the renewed motivation, is always there.

I hope what I wrote helps or at least makes sense lol.

Answer 2

It looks like from the Crusades the Europeans got the Renaissance and the Muslims got a lot of bitterness that they put into fighting holy wars that continue to this day. To the West "a new world was thus revealed" and the Crusades "brought about results which the popes had never dreamed" (Catholic Encyclopedia, Wikipedia) with the establishment of trade. The West got spices, ivory, jade, diamonds, gunpowder, oranges, and apples and an interdependence with the East that created a desire to travel. They learned algebra, optics, better glass-making and how to put stone on their castles.

But in the Islamic world the Crusaders were seen as "cruel and savage". The historian Peter Mansfield says the consequence was the development of a "defensive" and "oversensitive" Muslim mentality.

So I don't think the trade benefit has really made the world better off because the struggle is still continuing. In order to live in a more peaceful world Christians and Muslims need to figure out how to coexist. It's taking them a long time to do that.

Answer 3

War is not a game. People get hurt. My view on war is that it's not countries conflicting, but the leaders of the countries. The crusades especially were horrible in that way. It's ironic because the Bible says that you should be good to people and not kill them. The crusades were all about killing over religion.

What I've learned from them is that you cannot change how a person thinks. Using brutal force is even worse because in the end all you've accomplished is blood shed. Besides, we don't know what the heck is out there.

Answer 4

That all this talk about the crusades today ignores the many wars europeans fought in Europe against the Muslims who had invaded us and were trying to impose their religion and dominate and controll us.
How can we have a more peaceful world who so many want to ignore the truth, the past and reality. Nobody is all bad and nobody is an innocent victim.