Crusaders: Barbarians Who Trampled Their Own Religion?

Answer 1

The true message of a religion or another system of belief can be at times exposed to distortion by its pseudo-adherents. The Crusaders, who constitute a dark episode of Christian history, set a good example of this.

Crusaders were European Christians who undertook the expeditions at the end of the 11th century to recover the Holy Land (the area around Palestine) from the Muslims. They set out with a so-called religious goal, yet they laid waste each acre of land they entered with fear and violence. They subjected civilians to mass executions and plundered many villages and towns.

Their conquest of Jerusalem, where Muslims, Jews and Christians lived under Islamic rule in peace, became the scene of immense bloodshed. They violently killed all Muslims and Jews. The Crusaders' barbarism was so excessive that, during the Fourth Crusade, they plundered Istanbul, also a Christian city, and stole the golden objects from the churches.


No doubt, all this barbarism was utterly against Christian political doctrine. That is because, Christianity, in the words of the Bible, is a "gospel of love". In the Gospel according to Matthew, it is said that Jesus said "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" to his followers (Matthew, 5/44) In the Gospel according to Luke, it is said that Jesus said "If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also." (Luke, 6/29) No doubt, in no part of the New Testament, is there reference to the legitimacy of violence; murdering innocent people, on the other hand, is unimaginable. You can find the concept of "massacre of the innocents" in the Bible; yet, only in the cruel Jewish King Herod's attempt to kill Jesus while he was a baby.

While Christianity is a religion based on love that accommodates no violence, how did Christian Crusaders carry out the most violent acts of history? The major reason for this is that, Crusaders were mainly made up of ignorant people who could better be defined as "rabble". These masses, who knew almost nothing about their religion, who had never read or even seen the Bible once in their lifetime, and who were therefore completely unaware of the moral values of the Bible, were led into barbarism under the conditioning of Crusaders' slogans as "God wills it".

It is worth mentioning that in that period, Eastern Christians - the people of Byzantium, for instance - who were culturally far ahead of Western Christians, espoused more humane values. Both before and after the Crusaders' conquests, Orthodox Christians managed to live together with Muslims. According to Terry Johns, the BBC commentator, with the withdrawal of the Crusaders from Middle East, " civilized life started again and members of the three monotheistic faith returned to peaceful coexistence." [1] The example of the Crusaders is indicative of a general phenomenon: The more the adherents of an ideology are uncivilised, intellectually underdeveloped and "ignorant", the more likely they are to resort to violence. This also holds true for ideologies that have nothing to do with religion. All communist movements around the world are prone to violence. Yet the most savage and blood-thirsty of them was the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia. That is because they were the most ignorant.

Just as ignorant people may take a violence-ridden opinion to the point of insanity, so they may confuse violence with an opinion against violence (or to religion). The Islamic world also experienced such cases.

Answer 2

how are you able to call Christianity barbaric while it encourages to do right here: - (Matthew 7:12) “All issues, for this reason, which you quite elect men to do to YOU, you besides could could desire to likewise do to them; this, in reality, is what the regulation and the Prophets advise. - (Matthew 22:39-40) . . .the 2nd, like it, is this, ‘you may desire to love your neighbor as your self.’ 40 On those 2 commandments the entire regulation hangs, and the Prophets.. . . - (Matthew 5:40 4-40 5) . . .besides the undeniable fact that, I say to YOU: proceed to love YOUR enemies and to desire for those persecuting YOU; 40 5 which you will instruct yourselves sons of YOUR Father who's interior the heavens, on account that he makes his solar upward push upon depraved human beings and stable and makes it rain upon righteous human beings and unrighteous. you're for sure misled by using "Babylon the super", who represents the fake faith. do no longer seem at their strikes, yet seem on the strikes of the real Christians: (John 13:35) by using this all would recognize which you're my disciples, in case you have love between yourselves.”

Answer 3

Concise and to the point.

Answer 4

Christians as... hypocrites?!

SHOCK AND AWE!

Answer 5

nope, they were a response to the atrocities perpetuated on Europeans by the murderous slaughterers of the followers of Muhammad.