[Antoninus]

Traditionally, the underlying, fictitious truth has been expressed in fabulous religions.

Red flag #1...

Sails were just coming into use then, to supplant galley slaves for centuries thereafter as the primary source of locomotion on the seas.

Bzzzt. That's just erroneous.

The battle of Lepanto remains a moment in Western history when great powers in Christendom - Spain, Genoa, Venice, and several Papal states - gained victory over Islam.

Great powers? Genoa, Venice, and the Papal States were regional powers at best in 1571. Spain, yes. And no mention of the greatest Catholic power of all at the time: France. I smell an agenda.

The merchants of the West in 1571 made the world safer for trade, just as the merchants of the West are making the world safer for trade in 2004.

And there you have it. The economic explanation--all wars are fought to further commercial enterprises: the classic conclusion reached by *every* marxist historian.

Overall, a scattered, poorly argued, and intellectually vacuous article.

[Martin Tell]

Agreed. And the Knights of Malta, at the time the reigning galley superpower, was not even mentioned. The Maltese galleys were rowed by volunteers.

[Dataman]

Overall, a scattered, poorly argued, and intellectually vacuous article.

Not to mention leftist:

"The Founding Fathers wrote the separation of church and state into the US Constitution "

There is no such thing in the Constitution or any of the founding documents.

[TopQuark]

Overall, a scattered, poorly argued, and intellectually vacuous article.

And, I would add, largely leftist: note moralizing on religion as the root of all evil, refusing to achnowledge that it was G-dless socalists in Germany, Russia and China that perpetrated most atrocities of the XX century.

Interesting references to the "Muslim and Christian Palestine" and the "fact" that only Vikings and Syrian Jews supposedly traded slaves.