Reply ID: ghwm

buhogrunon: Ha! Well, for what it's worth, I enjoyed reading your critique. I'm sure that your view is definitely more popular and is the prevailing one both in and outside of prison.

Does it strike you as odd how the revised history books written in the past 50 years completely contradict, in many cases, actual historical fact? It always fascinates me when I have two history books open - one ancient, one modern - describing the same historical event - and both cannot be right as they completely contradict and conflict with each other. The lies taught about Christianity are almost limitless.

Like "Rome was converted from a Cosmopolitan city which accepted all races and religions..." Have you ever read any of Tacitus' works? (Ancient Roman Historian) He describes specifically, and in detail, several instances in which all the Jews were expelled from Italy. Matter of fact, read Acts 18:2 - it relates how the emperor Claudius (a pagan) had expelled all the Jews from Rome. Conversely, the Holy Roman Empire of Byzantium (depending on which converted Rome you claim hated various races and/or religions), the Catholic and Orthodox church has venerated converted Jews as saints and doctors of the church... race wasn't an issue. Look at St Theresa of Avila - 15th century Spanish Jew and Doctor of the church.

What other races did the Christianised Rome hate? The Moors, the Saracens? The Slavs, the Huns, the Varagians, the Rus? Missionaries gave their lives in droves to convert these people and incorporate them into Christendom.

I read a lot about the intolerance of Christian, and the tolerance of Muslims. But so many anomalies pop up that destroy that world view. For instance, in the 2nd crusade - in which Frankish crusaders sacked the Christian Empire of Byzantium - even the historian John Julian Norwich relates how they also sacked the Muslim quarter of the city! The Muslim quarter. Doesn't sound to discriminatory to me. A lot of historians speak of the tolerance of Islam in contrast with the medieval Christians. Hmm... but even a casual glance at history reveals that fallacy. All across Asia Minor when Christian lands fell to Islam, yeah they were tolerated... at a price. Churches were turned into mosques - even the celebrated church in Ephesus built over the grave of St. John the Apostle or even the Hagia Sophia in Constantinopole - the greatest church built until that time (1453 AD). Look at it today, please take note of the Islamic Minarets surrounding it! Or how about the extra "taxes" non-Muslims had to pay? Or the Janissary Corps... which was formed from Christian child slaves. Every Christian family had to surrender so many children to the Sultan, who would indoctrinate them into Islam and turn them into trained crack troops. They were forbidden to marry and were often used to wage wards against their own people and families to subdue them for Islam.

Of course, the Christians across North Africa fared worse as they faced conversion or death.

The Jews in Spain didn't have to undergo persecution either. In fact, if you read the history of the Jews in Spain for the 300 years before the Muslim occupation - they weren't persecuted at all! The only "persecution" I can find is a law that Christian slaves - particularly women and young boys - could not be owned by non-Christians.(incl. Jews). This wasn't to persecute the Jews but the protect the basic human dignities of the slaves. Most non-Christians recognised such rights.

You tell me who was at fault. Based on the injustice felt on the part of the Jews - who their Spanish Christian neighbour considered their friends and allies - when the Arab/Muslims invaded the Iberion peninsula around 700AD - the Jews conspired with the invaders and opened the fates to the attackers. Spain was enslaved by a foreign people for over 700 years! The Jews received priviliges and powers for their cooperation in the conquest. The Spaniards fought from then until 1492 to liberate their people, women and children from their Muslim masters. Were they wrong to be distrustful of the Jews after that? I consider it an act of supernatural mercy that all the Jews were not expelled from Spain in 1492 along with the Moors.

Despite all this aggression from the Muslims - the Crusades didn't begin until 300 years later. Is defence against a hostile power unjust? People blame the Christian for those deaths - yet the Christians didn't start that fight. They reluctantly waged it when peace no longer became possible by other means. Look how many Christian emperors loved the Muslims and spoke Arabic both in Byzantium and the Holy Roman Empire. Frederik Barbarossa even has Muslim/Arab troops... the Emperor Charles V had to fight mixed forces of Franks and Arab 'cause the French were allied with the Muslims against the Germanic Roman Empire. France was a Catholic monarchy at the time! Once again, the Bolshevist spin of Christian/intolerance is unjustified.

Ever studied any Livy - one of the first pre-Christian Roman historians? He wrote a history beginning with Rome's founding in 753 BC. Rome had plenty of racial superiority issues with outsiders. They sure martyred a ton of Christians too to be a "city which accepted all...religions..."

Hitler may have been born a Christian - but he didn't die one. As he progressed further on he became more interested in Germany's pre-Christian pagan origins. If he was once subservient to the Church, he later tried to destroy it... he said "I will crush the Catholic church like a toad." He had a concentration camp for priests - Duachau. In the end he created a psuedo-Christianity to do his will. It was called the "Reich Church." It became Christian in name but completely revolutionary in teaching and used to advance his agenda. A psuedo-Christianity that the Bible warns about. Again, people will swear to death... and read that Hitler died a Catholic. Just another lie. Read Pastor Niemoller's famous statement "first they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist... then they came for the Catholics..." or even Albert Einstein (the Jew) who remarked that he was never before interesting in the Catholic Church until WWII when he saw that that they were the one institution in Germany that consistently opposed Hitler...

THe Nazis are a great example, as they were a Totalitarian regime that oppressed the church.

But, I could not agree with you more when you said when a "totalitarian state tries to remove religion, it is simply an effort to remove power from one source to another, from the church to the dictator."

Right on! Mind if I borrow that phrase? The never-ending battle of man trying to place himself in the position of God. Seizing His authority - dominion.

"God is dead" - Nietzche
"Nietzche is dead" - God

Nice talking to you bud! Thanks for sharing your opinion - even if we disagree. Time will tell the truth...

Chris Hall #1565195
Ellis Unit
1697 FM 980
Hunstville, TX 77343