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shafique wrote:Are you embarrased to tell us whether you've given up the silly arguments that the Crusades were not a Holy War or not? And the sillier argument that the Urban's call for Holy War was generic?

Why avoid the question?

I've already quoted Urban calling for a Holy War - and you've argued that these calls are 'generic'

Surely you can't now be de-evolving into a previous loon argument that the Crusades weren't a Holy War??

Are you a de-evolving loon?

shafique wrote:Are you embarrased to tell us whether you've given up the silly arguments that the Crusades were not a Holy War or not? And the sillier argument that the Urban's call for Holy War was generic?

Why avoid the question?

I've already quoted Urban calling for a Holy War - and you've argued that these calls are 'generic'

Surely you can't now be de-evolving into a previous loon argument that the Crusades weren't a Holy War??

Are you a de-evolving loon?

event horizon wrote:But hey, my mind could change.

I ask what does the Pope say that makes his call to arms religious that I could not find in OBL's fatwa against the US and world Jewry ?

If there is nothing that the Pope says that sets his calls for warfare uniquely apart from Bin Laden's, then perhaps this is another case where Christianity and Christians are held to higher standards than Muslims and Islam.

Just sayin.

Pope's Call
In November of 1095, Pope Urban II initiated the first European attempt at colonizing the Muslim world - known in the West as the Crusades - by drawing this fateful picture:

For you must hasten to carry aid to your brethren dwelling in the East, who need your help, which they have often asked. For the Turks, a Persian people, have attacked them I exhort you with earnest prayer - not I, but God - that, as heralds of Christ, you urge men by frequent exhortation, men of all ranks, knights as well as foot soldiers, rich as well as poor, to hasten to exterminate this vile race from the lands of your brethren Christ commands it. And if those who set out thither should lose their lives on the way by land, or in crossing the sea, or in fighting the pagans, their sins shall be remitted. Oh what a disgrace, if a race so despised, base, and the instrument of demons, should so overcome a people endowed with faith in the all-powerful God, and resplendent with the name of Christ. Let those who have been accustomed to make private war against the faithful carry on to a successful issue a war against the infidels. Let those who for a long time have been robbers now become soldiers of Christ. Let those who fought against brothers and relatives now fight against these barbarians. Let them zealously undertake the journey under the guidance of the Lord. [15]

The Pope's words lay out many of the themes that would characterize this mass colonial movement East for the next two centuries. In one reading of
the Crusading venture, restless knights and small-tune princes are enticed
by their lords with tales of land and wealth, fuel the hopes of turning their swords away from the increasingly nervous feudal establishment, or what the Pope calls the faihful brethren. Landless folks and the poor -euphemized by the Pope as criminals - can also be turned Eastward with enticements of land and Divine forgiveness. But what is most interestinghere is that the Pope conceptualizes his Oriental Other in racial terms. The enemy, for now, is the debased races of Turks and Persians, and Islam is not yet a part of the Western conceptual matrix.

Extracted From:
Title: The Utility of Islamic Imagery in the West (Part 2 of 4)
Author: J.A. Progler
URL: http://ireland.iol.ie/~afifi/Articles/image.htm

Notes from the Article:
15. The passage appears in August C. Krey, The First Crusade: The Accounts of Eye Witnesses and Participants (Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith, 1958).

shafique wrote:The threads about the 9/11 and the Tim McVeigh wannabe are still there, evidence still in there - no U-turns, no flip flops - no rogue fantasies.