F**kin Right Wing Religious Idiots.

[SkynYrd]

Originally Posted by halo

Then your knowledge of european history is very shallow because the Crusades had little to do with religion and in most cases were counter-attacks anyway.

Look, I know the Crusades were not "black and white" historical events, but what I do is that they were sanctioned by the Pope, and in fact Pope Urban (the Second I think) was asked for troops to help defend the Byzantines against recent attacks on coastal strongholds from the Muslims, which blew up from there into the "take back the Holy Lands" message we are all familiar with now. I'm not arguing that the attacks were reactionary or provocational, I am merely stating that the battles were indeed of a religious nature. My basic point is that people who use religion to further their own self-interests (whether it be violence, power, whatever) are the ones at fault. You can't blame a book because someone interprets it in an obscure and obviously counterintuitive way.

I was only using the Crusdades as one example. The same could be said for slavery or women's rights or a boatload of other things. I mean, what would you think today about someone who preached "women shouldn't vote because the Bible says they exist to serve men"? You'd obviously realize they were a fucking moron trying to pass a personal, biased agenda. It doesn't take a genius to assign the moral value system of the Bible to the 21st century. I am not a very religious person... all I am saying is that the blood of these "wars in the name of god" is on the hands of the people who started them, not on a two-thousand year old book that was (in my sincere opinion) intended only as a moral guidline, just like other myths and religious texts.