[Chipata]

"The Crusades weren't "perpetrated", they were Europe's reaction to Islamic expansionism. Don't forget, until it was overrun by the Muslims the Holy Land was in large part Christian. Furthermore, Europe itself was in danger of being overrun. When it comes to the Crusades, the West has no need to apologize."

And you imagine that the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were murdered in cold blood in a genocide unmatched until the Holocaust was quite legitimate?

To evade the fact that Christianity was responsible for over two thousand years for the most terrible acts of barbarism against the Jewish people makes you just as guitly as the murderers themselves. You sound not very different from the apologists for 9/11.

[quidnunc]

Chipata wrote: ("The Crusades weren't "perpetrated", they were Europe's reaction to Islamic expansionism. Don't forget, until it was overrun by the Muslims the Holy Land was in large part Christian. Furthermore, Europe itself was in danger of being overrun. When it comes to the Crusades, the West has no need to apologize." And you imagine that the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were murdered in cold blood in a genocide unmatched until the Holocaust was quite legitimate? To evade the fact that Christianity was responsible for over two thousand years for the most terrible acts of barbarism against the Jewish people makes you just as guitly as the murderers themselves. You sound not very different from the apologists for 9/11.

Pfui!

See my reply #65 above.

I refuse to be sent off on a guilt trip for something which happened nine centuries ago.

As for the Holocaust, that wasn't committed in the name of Christianity, nor were the pogroms of the Russian czars.

In both cases Jews were scapegoated in order to distract the people from social and economic problems.

If you want to wear sackcloth and ashes for events which happened nearer to the Dark Ages than our own time then go right ahead, but don't expect me to join you.

[Criminal Number 18F]

hundreds of thousands of Jews who were murdered in cold blood

Sounds like you are conflating the Cruades with the Inquisition. Different things. And your numbers are fishy. Hundreds of thousands? (Not that hundreds of individuals isn't tragedy enough). Even the Inquisition didn't rack up hundreds of thousands.

Christianity was responsible for over two thousand years for the most terrible acts of barbarism against the Jewish people

You're exxagerating again... unless you attribute Naziism and the current predations of the PLO to Christianity. Christianity has barely been around two thousand years. During that time there were some other pretty terrible acts of barbarism (the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD? [pagan Romans]) (Extermination of Quraiza, 625 AD? [Mohammed]) (The Blood Libel of Damascus, 1840? [Muslim Arabs])

Also, someone who calls himself Christian and says his religion requires him to persecute Jews is (to say the least) theologically unsound. Yes, some Christians have persecuted Jews. Yes, there were specific atrocities against Jewish populations during the Crusades.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F