Posted on 11/06/2005 4:06:10 PM PST by Dr. Scarpetta
It was the collision of two great faiths…a clash between two of the world’s most enduring and powerful religions.
A thousand years ago, they battled each other for two centuries during three Crusades, each seeking control of what they claimed as the rightful holy lands of their people.
Heroes and villains emerged, and acts of barbarism cut wounds that are still felt to this day.
This November, The History Channel travels back in time for a historical, vivid and clear-eyed look at the first three Crusades, the battle between the Crescent and the Cross, which still shapes the Middle East and relations between the two great religions in our present-day world.
PBS?
Looks like some Aholes from the DU have found the site as well
When chieftans and kings converted their followers followed them. Modern folk think that the followers were thereby coerced. But that's because we have no understanding of how one can voluntarily follow a leader.
Was there violence accompanying the conversion process? Yes. When one chieftan or prince or king converted, in nearly every nation, other princes or chieftans opposed it and it was not uncommon for the new Christian leader to pay for it with his life, which might lead to further violence. But the basic rule holds (with some minor exceptions): Christianity did not spread by the sword and anyone who claims the contrary betrays how little he's read in the contemporary sources.
That about sums it up for the entertainment industry in general. I'm waiting for a movie to show the truth about muslims, instead of them changing Tom Clancy novels for the pc movie.
And I think it fair to say that most historians today emphasize the religious character of the crusades. They were justified responses to religion-inspired warfare and the primary motivation for men "taking up the cross" was in fact religious. I'm sorry, but Runciman really doesn't cut it anymore. He represents that old secular English cultured snobbery in which everything religious had to be reduced to non-religious causes.
Hopefully there will be alot of discussion at http://boards.historychannel.com/category.jspa?categoryID=600000014 .
So far, 75 minutes into the first part, it is clearly an attack on the character of the Christians, and unrelenting praise for the honor and the bravery of the muslims.
It should be interesting to trace the financial aspects of this "historical" production...
I prefer to make them here first. Is that all right with you?
It is biased, damn it all, it is anti Catholic.
Well, here on the left coast, it's sandmaggot revisionist history time.
We get to watch Paris get wiped out in another 100 minutes, at 9 pm...
: )
I am watching it.
Yeah, it is a hatch job.
Of course. Just gave the web address if anyone wanted to express his disapproval to the History Channel.
I tried watching that CBS thing but within 5 minutes I knew it was leftist tripe. I'm watching "Ice Age Christopher Columbus: Who Were the First Americans?" on Discovery. ?Dark haired, blue-eyed, Ice-Age EUROPEANS just made landfall on the East Coast. I wonder why Discovery decided to get so un-PC? I'm sure they will have the Ice Agers raping and pillaging any minute now.....
I see the cresent got top billing, what a surprise.
The point at which one jumps into history is a choice, and often establishes a bias for what is right. In the present case, jumping into history at the onset of the Crusades establishes a bias that the Middle East should have been Islamic. This is, at the very least, arbitrary.
In one way scheme of history, the Crusdaes were part of the counter-attack by Christianity against Islam, after it (Islam) had been stopped at the gates of Vienna and on the east slopes of the Pyrennes.
Through the next several hundred years, the Iberian Peninsula and much of the Balkan Peninsula were re-conquered. With the turning back of the Crusades, however, the re-conquest did not continue into north Africa and the Middle East.
The spread of Islam was, moreover, checked not only in the west, but also (eventually) in Africa and in Asia. Today, the only places where Islam is spreading is among the uneducated class of India, who continue to practice a very pagan form of Hinduism, and among the disgruntled in the west. You can appreciate why Islamicists continue to burn over the Crusades.
From the Islamic standpoint, the United States entered this struggle when we confronted the Barbary Coast Pirates. They (the pirates) thought themselves justified in plundering our merchant ships because we were, after all, Christians.
A open minded report of course has a Muslim determine the "real" reason why the crusades happened. Answer is? To rob the Muslims of all their wealth.
Red6
Of course the Crusades was a brief counterattack on islam, but we can't make that clear in a liberal production.
At the very start of the islamo-mercial, the Pope is depicted as inventing a "war" far away, to distract the Christians in Europe from fighting among themselves by attacking peace-loving muslims minding their own business killing, raping, capturing slaves and jannisaries back east somewhere...
This documentary is really quite biased. The Christians are vicious and wild barbarians just running around committing atrocities against Muslims and other Christians. The Muslims meanwhile are all valient and worthy opponents. I don't think I'll bother watching this tomorrow.
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