re: The Crusades were justified

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Only if you narrowly define religion.

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If you say so man. If you want to believe the crusades weren’t religious then go for it. I don’t really care.

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Is it an outlier? You think wars based on religion are the rule and those based on geography, other tribal ties or political ideology are all outliers?

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I think you’re confusing me with someone else or believe I’m saying something about all wars being religious. I am not. This thread is specifically about the Crusades. You’re the one who went for Cambodia for some unknown reason.

Not to mention the battlefront moved from within Europe to the East. Commerce within Europe thrived again and the Middle Ages ended soon after.

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If you want to believe the crusades weren’t religious then go for it.

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Never said that, never even insinuated that.

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Love and Beauty exist for some...others not so much. The death of a Believer and a Non-Believer re God would be the same physical process for both, as perceived by Worldly (non-Spiritual) viewers. Yet for the Believer, losing the bonds and limitations of perception and self and 'expanding' into the Self-Aware Energy Reservoir (God) would be the ultimate form of liberation, exhilaration and exploration. Not to mention Love. But only from the POV of the 'dying' Perceiver; Belief/Faith being key via the "perception is reality" narrative. While the same experience from a Non-Believer's POV would simply be a loss of consciousness by degree, and absorption into a feelingless Energy Reservoir. One would be a wonderful feeling and experience, the other not so much.

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I prefer to approach the whole concept of death less philosophically and scientifically and more spiritually. When we die our physical body returns to the elements of which it is composed ("dust to dust"). If there is a spiritual compontent of our humanity beyond our temporal body (I believe there is), it continues on to a spiritual realm. I believe that realm is the presence of God. Whether our spirit remains in the presence of God or not depends on if our hope and faith are in Him or not.

On this earth, my hope and faith are in a very personal and loving God, the God of Christianity whose Son was Jesus Christ. I believe that God sent His Son to become a man and experience all the trials and tribulations of humanity. Jesus experienced all that we experience, including temptation, but was without sin. As a perfect and guiltless man, he was able to pay the consequences of sin (eternal separation from God) for all sinners for all time. It is not possible to earn forgiveness from God through Jesus. Nothing we could ever say or do is worth that much. It can only be received as a gift (the greatest gift of all) from a loving Father.

To say there is no God is to say there is no forgiveness or even a need for forgiveness. Thus, there is no true guilt or innocence, no good or evil, no ultimate moral compass to which all of us must answer. A man may do whatever he wishes and can get away with. For me, this is the ultimate hopeless existence. I need for there to be a Loving God, a good and evil, a reason to fight for the good and vanquish the evil even if I fail again and again. I need to have hope that I am loved even when I sometimes do not deserve it.

I have noticed that people who believe there is no God are usually very cynical. They are more often than not selfish and self-centered. Their moral outlook is usually very inconsistent - what they consider good one day may be bad the next depending on how they feel. Most importantly, people who believe there is no God fall for anything because they stand for nothing.

Ultimately, all of us will die. If there is no God, no one will know the difference. Blackness will come, and then nothing...

If there is a God, I would rather approach Him having hoped in Him than having said to myself and the whole world that I never hoped in Him, trusted Him, or gave Him a chance. To say God isn't real leaves very little room for Him to prove to you that He is.

I believe this with all my heart - If you want evidence that He is real, just ask Him to reveal Himself to you. If you are willing to see Him as He truly is, He will reveal Himself to you.

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they also failed in saving constantinople and actually sacked it themselves.

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Which hastened the demise of the Byzantines.

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See you on the path, someday, somewhere, Tw. In the beautiful woods, I hope.

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Something tells me we will one day meet in those beautiful woods and recognize one another.

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The Crusades were justified

Which Crusades, the Children's Crusade? The Northern Crusade?

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You’re the only one in this thread confused

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Like Audrey Elizabeth Hale?

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Was killed shooting up a school. That's not martyrdom.

The Doge probably saw no profit in it. The Venetians and Genoa were all about the money. At the seige of Constantinople the Genoa trade settlement across the Golden Horn from Constantinople was left untouched and unmolested because they and the Venetians were doing business with Mehmet and the Ottomans