ISIS immolates a pilot, Obama retaliated by attacking Christianity. You see, somehow it’s OUR fault that Islamic extremists commit these heinous acts.
“There is a tendency in us, a sinful tendency, that can pervert and distort our faith.”
We are guilty of the crime of high-horsery.
“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.”
How dare we Christians be offended by barbarous Islamic violence? What were we thinking?
And he screwed that up too. Let’s have a look at Professor Obama’s historic moral equivalences.
The Crusades
The Crusades were a response to the Muslim invasion of Europe and the Holy Lands.
The Crusades were started by the Muslims in the year 630 A.D. when Muhammad invaded and conquered Mecca. Later on, Muslims invaded Syria, Iraq, Jerusalem, Iran, Egypt, Africa, Spain, Italy, France, etc. The Western Crusades started around 1095 to try to stop the Islamic aggressive invasions. Islamic Crusades continued even after the Western Crusades.
The Crusades are routinely misrepresented:
One of the most potent myths of our age is that the Crusades were little more than an unprovoked attack by a barbarous Europe against a quiescent and cultured Islamic world. According to conventional ideas, the seventh and eighth centuries constitute the great age of Islamic expansion. By the eleventh century — the time of the First Crusade — we are told that the Islamic world was quiescent and settled and that, by implication, the Crusaders were the aggressors. Indeed, the Crusaders are routinely portrayed as a horde of barbarians from a backward and superstitious Europe irrupting into the cultured and urbane world of the eleventh century Near East.
This at least is the populist language often employed on television and in newspaper articles. In my recent book Holy Warriors: Islam and the Demise of Classical Civilization, I have shown however that before the advent of Islam Christians had no concept of “Holy War” at all, and that it was from the Muslims themselves that Europeans took this idea. I showed too that the Crusades, far from being an unprovoked act of aggression on the part of Christian Europe, was part of a rearguard action aimed at stemming the Muslim advance which, by the start of the eleventh century, was threatening as never before to overwhelm the whole of Europe.
Spanish Inquisition
Again, let’s have a look at its genesis:
The Spanish Inquisition can be seen as an answer to the multi-religious nature of Spanish society following the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim Moors. After invading in 711, large areas of the Iberian Peninsula were ruled by Muslims until 1250, when they were restricted to Granada, which fell in 1492.
Obama’s remarks came the day after a “secret” meeting with Muslim leaders, off-limit to the press and to photographers.
Whether or not you find the Crusades and the Inquisition offensive, the fact remains that both were reactions to Islamic aggression. For Obama to draw a moral equivalence between the Christianity of ages ago and the Islam of today is to remind us all that Islam is a millennium behind the civilized world and of Islam’s continuous history of violence.
But what sort of history can you expect from a guy who thinks George Washington lived in the White House?
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.
Let’s see… 1783…. 1095. Yep, I was right. There was no United States of America during the Crusades so we did not participate or send troops or aircraft into the fight.
Although, I do believe Brian Williams helped storm Jerusalem. I recall reading about his helicopter being hit by a stone from a Muslim catapult.
HISTORY QUOTE:
MODERN REVISIONIST HISTORY:
If that revisionist pap were true why were battles required to STOP Islamist invasion of Vienna as of 1683 when the advance of Islam was finally halted and turned back in Europe?
~~~~~
Obama’s ”secret meeting” with all those Muslims wasn’t about terrorism.
It was about Islamaphobia.
Thus Obama lectured Christians that, ”No God condones terror.”
When did he ever pay attention at school?
Not at the Madrassa he enjoyed so much, apparently.
Quote the koran: 3:149 “We will put terror into the hearts of the unbelievers.”
Want to hear from a U.S. president opine accurately on Islam?
Try John Quincy Adams the sixth President (1825-1829)
Gee, tell us how you really feel, Mr. President!
Nanny need anyone quote the bible to show its predilection for violence ?
How many times in the Bible were whole populations of cities men
Women children even animals slaughtered ?
People in Africa kill 5000 witches each year as yet hey are instructed by their Christian religion
When was the last time an Islamic country invaded a Christian country ?
Are the people in Iraq better off after our invasion/occupation?
Were the national interests of the USA improved ?
When a large bomb is dropped how unimportant are the deaths of children?
@John: Indeed, John. Please provide the quotations where Christians conquered cities and slaughtered everyone.
They were until Obama pulled all our forces out and left them at the mercy of ISIS.
They were until Obama pulled all our forces out .
Don’t know. Ask Obama; he LIKES doing that.
Obama can’t even bring himself to utter the words “Islamic terrorism”, but is ready to go all medieval on the Crusades.
@John:
The “Bible” of the Christians has two parts: Old and New. The New has primacy, and it’s overarching theme is one of love and non-violence. Like a fundamentalist preacher, you are cherry-picking verses to serve your own agenda, and not the truth.
In the name of making Christianity spread? Zero. You’re using the Old Testament like that hack Dawkins.
Christians are, overwhelmingly, one of the most persecuted and slaughtered faith groups in the Africa, every year. See a few weeks ago: 70 Niger churches burned by muslims in retaliation to Charlie Hedbo. I don’t know if your witch burnings statement is real or just rumor.
September 9th, 2001…and a few weeks ago in Paris.
No, because that was never the plan (sadly). Are they better off after we pulled out prematurely (sorry…chuckle at that if you must, but it wasn’t meant for humor)? The USA is not a Christian nation. It’s free for all religions, including Islam. The Iraqi invasion was justified by the government at the time: a legal war voted on by reps and dems. No one lied about anything, but the public was mad we went to war…as it should be.
Not a coherent question; not sure you’re asking.
They are very important, and the US should look at how it wages war on all levels. The USA’s intent, however, is very very different than that of ISIS and the rest. Not analogous, not the same.
You’re opinions have some merit, but not enough to bear real debate. Please read more on world religions, because your ignorance is staggering.
There is a question which should (but will not be) posed to the Great One.
The Crusades and the Inquisition were led by men who said they were followers of Christ. Thus their activities were nominally Christian.
Boko Haram, ISIL, the Taliban, and other affiliated groups proceed “Allahu Akhbar.” Thus they proceed in the name of Allah, the merciful, the beneficent. Thus their activities are nominally Muslim.
The parallelism is exact. I cannot make a logical distinction here.
If you proceed in the name of some Deity, then you represent that Deity.
D’Oh.
I’m going to have to give a pass to the idiot followers of Obama, the top idiot.
Look what Obama said about the shootings of four Jews at a KOSHER deli in Paris:
The president calls the attackers “violent, vicious zealots who behead people or randomly shoot a bunch of folks in a deli in Paris.”
Video here.
Doesn’t this mirror Obama’s Sec State claiming some men out for a walk one night just randomly decided to go kill some Americans. She justified her idiocy by asking, ”at this point what difference does it make?”
Funny how modern happenings can be such old news as to be non-issues while 800-year old happenings can morally equate with today’s horrors.*
*19 dead today (Feb 9th, 2015) including a member of parliament in Somalia and 18 Iraqi civilians on the street in Kadhimiyah.
The Crusades and and Spanish Inquisition were also aggressively and violently anti-Jewish.
The silly exercise of moral relativism by the left misses the glaring fact that the Crusades – a military response to muslim invasion – happened almost 1000 years ago, and the Spanish Inquisition happened a few hundred years ago. Those events are not ongoing. Muslim terrorism is happening NOW, no different than in the days islam was spreading through Asia Minor and across Northern Africa. Look at the Barbary Pirates. Muslim aggression has been there from the 7th century going forward to today. Imams are calling for religious violence against nonmuslims NOW. There is no Christian-based call for killing muslims. There were no religious edicts demanding the killing of Serrano for his photo of a crucifix in urine. There was no religious edict calling for the slaughter of muslims when we attacked Afghanistan and Iraq. Those were POLITICALLY sanctioned wars as a reaction to aggression from those countries. Any Christian who made such a religion-based call to kill muslims would be reviled in our society, and rightly so. However, it is cowardly naivety to hear muslims call for the deaths of nonmuslims, and to see nonmuslim and “not muslim enough” victims being slaughtered, crucified, beheaded, raped and burned alive by those claiming allegience and service to islam, proclaiming that such things are not “true islam”, thus refusing to recognize the threat and subsequently failing to counteract it. Moral relativism in the face of such blatant evil is utterly craven.
@Greg:
Like getting past the Crusades, most of the world has grown out of their anti-Semitism. Of course, it still exists, extensively, in Europe and is predominant in the Arab world. In other words, one wonders what the hell your point might be since, by and large, the very people we are objecting to being compared to Christians in the Crusades are STILL persecuting Jews today. Not us.
@Bill, #11:
My point is that neither the Crusades nor the Inquisition were specifically “reactions to Islamic aggression.”
It might be worth noting that during the later Crusades, Europe’s response to “Islamic aggression” involved attacking non-Christian people well outside the borders of an European nation. They sure as hell weren’t doing it to defend Judaism, either. They were just as eager to sack and pillage cities having large Jewish populations as any other.
You’re faulting Obama because he isn’t willing to sanitize history of any indications of Christian misconduct.
@Pete, #10:
The German extermination of millions of Europe’s Jews and the Bosnian genocide happened in the recent past. These events were perpetrated by Christian nations. There’s also the uncomfortable fact that we’ve recently conducted wars ourselves that Muslims might view rather differently that we do.
We don’t seem to like to think about uncomfortable facts. We prefer a view of history that makes us feel good about ourselves. That’s all well and good, but it’s a habit that tends to keep us from learning important lessons that could reduce the likelihood of repetition.
@Greg:
Arguing that the Crusades were not a response to the muslim aggression of CONQUERING nonmuslim lands is a ridiculous, disingenuous revision of history. Arguing that CURRENT ongoing muslim aggression against non muslims not to mention against those deemed “not muslim enough” is abrogated by PAST acts of the inquisition or Nazi anti-semitism is dangerous morale relativism, and would otherwise be laughable.
So called “moderate muslims” know the reality of islamic barbarity. A muslim physician I work with told one of my nurses she would be killed for her behavior if she were in his home country of Pakistan. Ignoring reality by making such ridiculous excuses is insane and cowardly.
@Bill: Must be because he likes to work the joy stick and then pickle the drone load. Nothing like being “Droned to Death” from 15,000 ft. Why ISIS hasn’t watched Howard Hawks’ movie “Hatari!” where chairs are welded to the front fenders and the hunters ride strapped in on the hunt. How easy to strap women and children in the seats monitored by streaming ‘Go-Pro’ cameras to document our Drone attacks. They are so smart, yet so stupid.
@mathman:
That’s because you are a mathman, math is not logic, it’s a science.
Just because some nuts say they are killing in the name of Christ does not make it a fact. Christianity is not a religion of death, Islamism is.
@Greg: to get back in touch with reality, you need to take a right at the next corner.
@Pete, #13:
Nobody has said or argued that anything should be abrogated. Nor is it historical revision to to point out that the Crusades and the Inquisition were not entirely a matter of the peace-loving, enlightened Christians of the civilized West defending themselves against the depredations of barbaric Islamic invaders.
Speaking of drone strikes, another successful one just eliminated ISIS’s Main Man in Afghanistan. That’s a result of Obama’s policy. It was the Bush administration that turned that same guy loose. Deal with it.
@Greg:
No, Greg. Germany was a socialist state, NOT a Christian state. Hitler called himself “A complete pagan.”
@Greg:
It was called the Dark Ages for a reason. The Crusades were a response to the Muslim invasions. They continued to retake Holy Land and so Christians had safe passage to holy sites. And of course there was the unfortunate attack against Orthodox Constantinople. But there is no question that the Crusades began as a result of Muslim aggression. And Pope John Paul II apologized for the mishap in Constantinople.
He also apologized to those convicted during the inquisition. All faiths, including Christians felt the wrath of the inquisition. But that was a long time ago. No one has been put to the rack in the last few hundred years for heresy. No one has argued that there haven’t been horrible acts committed in the name of religions other than Islam. Only that right now, in this time, horrible acts are being committed and even defended in the name of Islam. To compare what happened during the Crusades and the Dark Ages to what is happening now is completely asinine.
Instead of that idiotic attempt at relevancy, President Obama could have pointed out Al-Sissi’s speech on Islamic reformation. But Obama doesn’t like Al-Sissi. Why is that? Why was he all in for Morsi? Al-Sissi came to power the same way Morsi did, so don’t even try to make that the reason. The “Egyptian Spring” was followed by the election of Morsi. When Morsi pushed his hand, the people spoke again, the Egyptian Army reacted again and Al-Sissi was elected. We should be 100% behind Al-Sissi. Who in the region has dared speak out against extremists the way he has?
@Greg:
Abrogation is an intrinsic concept in islam. The leftist attempt to excuse muslim terrorism with the mischaracterization of the Crusades is but one example. The misclassification of the National Socialist German Workers Party’s genocide of Jews is another.
Obama’s drone strikes are a continuation of Bush’s policy.
@Pete, #20:
Do you really believe the Obama administration has been methodically listing and eradicating the leadership cadre of various Islamic terrorist organizations, and blowing the hell out of their armies wherever they collect with waves of airstrikes, as part of an attempt to excuse Muslim terrorism?”
It astonishes me that people seem to miss the point that Obama publicly “makes nice” to Islam in general while waging war on Islamic extremists in particular because Islamic terrorism can never be contained or eliminated without most of the heavy lifting being done by rational, moderate Muslims themselves. The King of Jordan gets that point. Muslim nations will not clean their own house unless the terrorists are properly viewed as a threat to Islam and to Muslim nations themselves, rather than as enemies of the West.
The far right’s anti-Obama mania has motivated them to attempt to spin Obama’s totally necessary and pragmatic rhetoric into a political weapon they can use against our own country’s Commander in Chief. WTF should we call that level of single-minded political opportunism? Is there any one word that might sum up the behavior motivated by such appallingly screwed up priorities?
You are mischaracterizing what Obama’s done.
He won’t list many terrorist organizations as terrorists, therefore he lets those organizations grow stronger!
Take the terrorism of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Or of Iran.
Or of Hezb’allah.
Or of al Qaeda.
He doesn’t even want to call the ”let’s-shoot-her-in-the-face,” Taliban terrorists.
What Obama does is kill people who probably would have been far more valuable to us alive.
He does that all the time.
What would they have said that he absolutely does not want us to hear?
@Nanny, #22:
I would have no desire whatsoever to see them all resurrected to give us an opportunity to make better use of them. Nor would it have been even remotely possible to somehow have captured over 2,000 terrorists eliminated in this fashion, so that we could put them up indefinitely on the taxpayers’ dime at Hotel Gitmo.
@Bill: Greg, any proof that Bush lied or where you lying?? Any proof Romney cheated on his 2010 taxes?? Still waiting Greggie. Know which President carried 49 out of 50 states?? Still waiting Greggie!! Did Obama lie when he told America they could keep their insurance and/or doctor “period”?? No answers eh??
@Common Sense, #24:
Some have speculated recently that tax problems might be the reason Romney suddenly decided not to enter the 2016 presidential race. I suppose such speculation might be reasonable, since Jeb Bush was obviously preparing to raise the issue as a means to blow the front runner’s campaign boat out of the water. Romney could have put an end to all rumors that he’d done something improper, simply by releasing his returns for the 2 years in question. Since he didn’t, I don’t really know whether or not he had something he wanted to hide.
I’m tired of arguing about George W Bush. I do know who carried 49 out of 50 states, because I voted for him twice. I then reflected carefully on the results. I haven’t voted for a republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan. Given the recent choices that they’ve offered, it seems unlikely that I will. They’ve totally lost sight of the middle ground. If my only choices are right or left of center, I’ll always pick the left.
@Greg:
Obama doesn’t even think there is such a thing.
@Redteam:
Greg best be careful, least he draw the attention of IRS auditors.
The only person I hear in Obama’s speech who is riding a high horse is “the Won” himself.
The President has his mind in concrete he will never believe his lying eyes