Posted on 02/06/2015 6:38:55 AM PST by Kaslin
On Tuesday, the so-called Islamic State released a slickly produced video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a steel cage. On Wednesday, the United Nations issued a report detailing various "mass executions of boys, as well as reports of beheadings, crucifixions of children and burying children alive" at the hands of the Islamic State.
And on Thursday, President Obama seized the opportunity of the National Prayer Breakfast to forthrightly criticize the "terrible deeds" ... committed "in the name of Christ."
"Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history," Obama said, referring to the ennobling aspects of religion as well as the tendency of people to "hijack" religions towards murderous ends.
"And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."
Obama's right. Terrible things have been done in the name of Christianity. I have yet to meet a Christian who denies this.
But, as odd as it may sound for a guy named Goldberg to point it out, the Inquisition and the Crusades aren't the indictments Obama thinks they are. For starters, the Crusades -- despite their terrible organized cruelties -- were a defensive war.
"The Crusades could more accurately be described as a limited, belated and, in the last analysis, ineffectual response to the jihad -- a failed attempt to recover by a Christian holy war what had been lost to a Muslim holy war," writes Bernard Lewis, the greatest living English-language historian of Islam.
As for the Inquisition, it needs to be clarified that there was no single "Inquisition," but many. And most were not particularly nefarious. For centuries, whenever the Catholic Church launched an inquiry or investigation, it mounted an "inquisition," which means pretty much the same thing.
Historian Thomas Madden, director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Saint Louis University, writes that the "Inquisition was not born out of desire to crush diversity or oppress people; it was rather an attempt to stop unjust executions."
In medieval Europe, heresy was a crime against the state, Madden explains. Local nobles, often greedy, illiterate and eager to placate the mob, gleefully agreed to execute people accused of witchcraft or some other forms of heresy. By the 1100s, such accusations were causing grave injustices (in much the same way that apparatchiks in Communist countries would level charges of disloyalty in order to have rivals "disappeared").
"The Catholic Church's response to this problem was the Inquisition," Madden explains, "first instituted by Pope Lucius III in 1184."
I cannot defend everything done under the various Inquisitions -- especially in Spain -- because some of it was indefensible. But there's a very important point that needs to be made here that transcends scoring easy, albeit deserved, points against Obama's approach to Islamic extremism -- which he will not call Islamic. Christianity, even in its most terrible days, even under the most corrupt popes, even during the most unjustifiable wars, was indisputably a force for the improvement of man.
Christianity ended greater barbarisms under pagan Rome. The church often fell short of its ideals -- which all human things do -- but its ideals were indisputably a great advance for humanity. Similarly, while some rationalized slavery and Jim Crow in the U.S. by invoking Christianity, it was ultimately the ideals of Christianity itself that dealt the fatal blow to those institutions. Just read any biography of Martin Luther King Jr. if you don't believe me.
When Obama alludes to the evils of medieval Christianity, he fails to acknowledge the key word: "medieval." What made medieval Christianity backward wasn't Christianity but medievalism.
It is perverse that Obama feels compelled to lecture the West about not getting too judgmental on our "high horse" about radical Islam's medieval barbarism in 2015 because of Christianity's medieval barbarism in 1215.
It's also insipidly hypocritical. President Obama can't bring himself to call the Islamic State "Islamic," but he's happy to offer a sermon about Christianity's alleged crimes at the beginning of the last millennium.
We are all descended from cavemen who broke the skulls of their enemies with rocks for fun or profit. But that hardly mitigates the crimes of a man who does the same thing today. I see no problem judging the behavior of the Islamic State and its apologists from the vantage point of the West's high horse, because we've earned the right to sit in that saddle.
He doesn’t care if he’s telling the truth. His minions will hear it and believe ‘yes, that’s the truth’. Truth isn’t important when you have a country to destroy.
Very Good
Golf Clap
Socialism killed more people in the 20th Century than Christianity did in the preceding 19 centuries.And only Islam has killed more people than socialism.
In fact, islam kills more people each year than did 350 years of the Inquisition. (hat tip TheAstuteBlogger)
HISTORY OF JIHAD
....why the POS co-compspiriting media in this country still protect him defies logic
“Logos” is exactly Whom he defies,
so why would his pronouncements not defy logic?
The real crusade has been waged by the Muslims continuously since the beginning of the religion.
Even the word “Barbaric” has its roots in the Barbary Pirates, muslims who wreaked havoc on the countries of the Mediterainian.
Also, his speech only “defies logic” if you accept the lies and assumptions about him and his past that the left and the MSM push.
If you understand who he is and where he comes from, ideologically, it is PERFECTLY LOGICAL that he would believe the things he said.
Love the last line ....
“I see no problem judging the behavior of the Islamic State and its apologists from the vantage point of the West’s high horse, because we’ve earned the right to sit in that saddle.”
Progressive "political correctness" has been forced on us by the Holders the Obamas, the Clintons, the DeBlasios, the Sharptons---they have bludgeoned many of their own supporters into a frightening silence. The silence of some on the left is telling....even they know where we're headed.
=========================================
Progressives' fatal flaw is that they are emotionally disturbed---w/ an obsessive need to "feel good" about themselves. Obama obsessively whines about "helping those who are under-served," those who feel "left out" of the process, etc....forcing we the people to foot the bills for his pathetic emotional needs
Obama's Progressive "vision" has several major flaws:
<><> failing to see that people are not intellectually equal---some are vastly smarter than others. Let's see the Ferguson punks run a Fortune 500 company (snort).
<><> failing to see the existence of evil---Obama equates today's in-your-face Islamic barbarism w/ far-off events that his diseased mind regurgitates from a 1000 years ago.
<><> cavalierly dismissing America's exceptionalism---Obama has managed to extinguish a beacon that lit the entire world.
<><> failing to grow-up---the fact is he's no longer a campus radical itching for a confrontation in the dean's office.
====================================================
America has witnessed the tragic consequences of a generation inculcated with moral relativity and situation ethics. The ghost of Saul Alinsky lurks behind the Progressive Poison spewed by Obama, Hillary Clinton, and the rest of their ilk.
The Dumbos clearly see themselves as "deconstructionists"----savagely committed to tearing down America's traditions. Every maniacal official govt act is dedicated to chipping away at the bulwark of American freedoms.
Obama put cadres of self-absorbed punks who are squatting in govt---imbedded in the Civil Service system. They are clearly disturbed and dysfunctional---obsessed with religious cleansing and kicking religionists to the curb.
Their motto: "Everything For Us--Nothing For You."
That same generation inculcated with moral relativity and situation ethics has segued into The Entitlement Generation---better known as "Pay Me--I'm a Victim.
The Obamas, The Clintons, the De Blasios, and the rest of the Progressive savages, are ruthless predators w/ no empathy for others and no remorse. They are anti-social psychopaths who recognize no moral boundaries--aggressively going after what they want, irregardless of the consequences to others.
Nothing surprises me with this narcissist.
FINALLY!!!
Just heard Rudy Guiliani on with Bill Hemmer - he stated that the quran has the verses which support what the islamists are carrying out. Good to hear someone finally get to the heart of the matter.
The far left progressives do not use logic for they are incapable of doing so.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone and you have to expect that from that ignorant arrogant pos
Obama never misses an opportunity to trash America and or Christians..
I listened to it too
I tried to post a comment yesterday about the truth behind the inquisition and it was removed by the moderator... no idea why. The Spanish inquisition targeted Jewish citizens of spain who had converted to Catholicism. Most accusations of heresy were made out of envy and greed. Punishments were carried out by Ferdinand and Isabella, not crazed Catholic monks, and pope Sixtus actually wrote to Ferdinand asking him to stop. I would guess that many people would rather demonize the Catholic Church than know the truth.
No he was taking a swipe at the American sniper and our military. That’s what I got from his assmoronic speech ...Plain and simple he was siding with the radical demonic left!! I loath that bastard!
The comparison is understandable even though the tu quoque fallacy flaws the logic.
Coming out of the mouth from a full fledge Moouusliem and a member of the M.B., just that simple. Remember the last 5 words in plain Arabic at his Cairo Speech!!!
Any further questions???
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.