thichi,
personal question....do you adhere to a particular church? and where you ever a JW?
The history of Islam
by Elsewhere 111 Replies latest jw friends
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ThiChi
Realist:
I Became a JW in 1968 at the age of 9. I served as a Pioneer, MS and then an Elder in 1993. I left the Jws in 2001. I DA?ed myself.
I believe that Christianity itself is the true fath, not any one religion. I do not belong to any Church at this time. My agenda is truth, perspective and context of these matters. I love history, and my favorite color is blue.....
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Mary
Your mistake, uh Mary, is the obviously religiously biased slant of your view. You have no respect for another religion or their, uh "revelations".
Uh, blow it out your ass Abaddon. You have no idea what I respect and what I don't respect so please don't bother to make assumptions about it.
"....You seem to think Islam as a religion is invalid. You then present information to portray Islam as intrinsically dangerous in a very partial and selctive fashion...."
And you have evidence that they're NOT dangerous?? Please share this wonderful bit of salacious info with the rest of us.
It's easy to make out Christians to be blood-stained lunatics by nature of belief if you're as selective with your facts as you are, despite the fact most Christians are peace-loving people.
Christianity's history is filled with as much blood, violence and intoleration as Islam......the difference is that at least Christianity has made headway towards tolerance and the treatment of women, Islam hasn't - they're still living in the Dark Ages.
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Realist
thichi,
interesting. what makes you think christianity is the only true faith? isn't it quite obvious that it is (particularly the old testament) just as made up as the islamic or any other faith?
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Satanus
Thichi
You claimed that:
With all its faults, the Crusades saved Europe from invasion...
To show that this was false, i furnished the example of the moorish invasion of spain, which occupation lasted until the 15th century:
it was around 700, when muslims sauntered into spain, crossing the the mediteranean from north africa. They entered without any resistance, and remained for about 700 yrs.
You, in turn, accuse me of attempting to justfy it, when i merely stated it as fact to show that your orignal statement was false:
Besides, your claim does not hold water, if one can march in and invade unopposed, this makes it right or justified? Give me a break. You seem to really bend over backwards for the ill in this world....
First of all, it is true that the order of the knights of st john are now controled by the english queen and/or perhaps the prime minister (george herbert walker bush was paid off for desert storm one w a malta knighting by margie thatcher).
For one who had a knights templar avatar for a while, your knowledge of knight orders is limited (or maybe it's your intelligence) as demonstrated by:
Your St. John?s Knights History is incorrect. St. John?s Knights (England)are a more recent order that claims lineage from the Hospitalers (France) which were disbanded in the 15 th Century.
Here is some info on the knights of st john.
The Knights Hospitaller (the Order of Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem or Knights of Malta or Knights of Rhodes) were a militant Christian monastic group founded in the 11th century. Based in the Holy Land, the order was charged with the care and defence of pilgrims.
In 1020, merchants from Amalfi and Salerno in Italy were given permission by the Caliph of Egypt to build a hospice in Jerusalem. The hospice, which was originally dedicated Saint John Almoner, and later to Saint John the Baptist, took in Christian pilgrims traveling to visit the birthplace of Christ.
The monastic order was founded following the First Crusade by Gerard, whose role as founder was confirmed by a Papal bull of Pope Paschal II in 1113. Gerard acquired territory and revenues for his order throughout the Kingdom of Jerusalem and beyond. His successor, Raymond of Provence, established the first significant Hospitaller infirmary near to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Initially the group just cared for those pilgrims who made it to Jerusalem but the order soon extended into providing an armed escort to pilgrims. The escort soon grew into a substantial force.
The rising power of Islam eventually pushed the Knights out of their traditional holdings in Jerusalem. After the fall of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Jerusalem itself in 1187), the Knights were confined to the County of Tripoli and when Acre was captured in 1291 the order sought refuge in the Kingdom of Cyprus. They then organised a fleet, and in 1309 they took the island of Rhodes as their new base of operations.
The Knights Templar were suppressed in 1312 and much of their property was given to the Hospitallers.
On Rhodes, now known as the Knights of Rhodes they were forced to become a more militarized force, fighting especially with African pirates (the Barbary coast pirates). They withstood two invasions in the 15th century, one by the Sultan of Egypt in 1444 and another by Mehmed II in 1480, who after the fall of Constantinople made the Knights a priority target.
However in 1522 an entirely new sort of force arrived when 400 ships under the command of Suleiman the Magnificent delivered 200,000 men to the island. Against this force the Knights had about 7,000 men-at-arms, and the walls of the city. The resulting siege lasted six months, at the end of which the few remaining Knights were allowed to leave Rhodes and retreated to the Kingdom of Sicily.
After seven years of moving from place to place in Europe, the Knights were re-established on Malta in 1530 by the order of Pope Clement VIII. Their annual fee for the island was a single Maltese falcon. Here the once-again re-named Knights of Malta continued their actions against piracy, their fleet targeting the Barbary pirates.
Although they had only a small number of ships, they nevertheless quickly drew the ire of the Ottomans who were less than happy to see the order re-established. Accordingly they assembled another massive army in order to dislodge the Knights from Malta, and in 1565 invaded. At first the battle looked to be a repeat of the one on Rhodes. Most of the city was destroyed and about half the Knights died in battle. But things changed dramatically when a relief force arrived from Spain. In the ensuing retreat the Ottomans lost some 30,000 men, enough to secure the island for a time.
In 1571 the growing Ottoman fleet decided to give challenge once again, but this time were met at sea by a huge and very modern Spanish fleet under the command of Don Juan de Austria (son of Emperor Charles V). The Ottomans were outgunned, outmanuvered and outrun, and by the end of the day almost the entirety of their fleet was destroyed or captured in what is now known as the Battle of Lepanto. The Ottomans were never again to be a naval force of import, and the security of the Knights was thus ensured.
Following the victory at Lepanto the Knights continued to attack pirates, and their base became a centre for slave trading, selling captured Africans and Turks and conversely freeing Christian slaves. Malta remained a slave-market until well into the eighteenth century. It required a thousand slaves to equip merely the galleys of the order.
The group lost most of its European holdings following the rise of Protestantism but survived on Malta. The English branch ended in 1540. In 1831, a revived English Order was founded known as the Most Venerable Order of St. John of Jersualem in the British Realm.
http://www.fact-index.com/k/kn/knights_hospitaller.html
That's my effort in rounding out your knowledge of knights. For all that, it's still not clear to me that this order was crusader, although individual members could have joined crusades.
SS
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talley
Well, sports fans, your young children and grandchildren will be living the history of the future, and if they are female, they will be living the future in a burka.
When I first got the computer, I sutmbled unto a demographic article of Islam in Denmark. Wish I could find the exact page again, but I can't. The upshot of the article was that at the rate of Danish and Muslim births, Muslims will be the voting majority in Denmark in 40 years. I suspect that France and Germany will not be far behind. Maybe one can even add Canada to that list, as they have recently sanctioned Islamic 'judicial courts' there. Our going overboard on political correctness will be the demise of 'western civilization' as we now know it.
If they can't kill us all, they will outbreed us.
And Elsewhere, thanks for the information on Islam that you have been passing along. We have gotten so complacent and feel so secure that we are not able to recognize danger when it stares us in the eyes.
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ThiChi
S:
A good example of "cut and past" internet crap. I stand by the facts. You are correct the Spain invasion took hundreds of years to finally repel the invaders. So what? My claim stands, Spain was invaded.
Your information on the "St. John Knights" is very sloppy indeed. You list many orders over lumped over time as your proof. The Nights of Malta are from Cypress, not England or France.
Like I stated, read....
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Satanus
Thichi
I never denied that spain was invaded. Like alanf says, you can't connect the dots. If i feel like it, maybe later i'll break it down into infant sized baby spoon fulls for you.
SS
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ThiChi
""Thichi
With all its faults, the Crusades saved Europe from invasion...
Not...""
Agian, you are wrong.
In 1479, Two Christion states of Argon and Castillle united to complete the reconquista. They would have been free to march on. I can cite the Crusade of Varna, The Crusade of Nicoplis, The rise of the Ottoman Turkes, the Crusading of the 15th Century, all as a defensive wars....
Yes, Europe was saved from invasion. Spain is an example.... ""i understood that the main thrust of the crusades was to take jerusalem from the infidel moslems""
SS: lol, this shows who needs to be spoon fed, you are the ignorant one, my friend. You need to "connect the dots.." Agian just not true.... Did you know the word Crusade is not even a midieval word?It is easy for morden people to dismiss the crusades as unjust, Such judgements, however, tell us more about people like Saint Satan than the observed. Our infintely more destructive wars waged for the sake of political and social ideologies would, be lamentable wastes of human life to the midieval person. The bottom line is people fight for what is most dear to them.
Another is the Contest of Christian and Muslim Spain by Bernard F. Reilly..... I cite all these works for my claim.
For anyone who wants a detailed study of the effects the Crusades had in Spain and the advance of Islam in general, see A History of the Crusades by Steven Runciman. Fortunately the Scholarship on Medieval Spain is vibrant, and paints a very different picture than Saint Satan does. The Reconquista of Spain is a good start, by Dr. Derek W. Lomax. -
ThiChi
Realist: I refer you to C. S. Lewis "Mere Christianity" and "Further Along the Road Less Traveled" By Dr. Scot Peck for a good outline of why I am a believer.