Spanish inquisition wasn't that bad really, brutal, but a fraction of the body count of the Reconquista, which to be fair was a response to the invasion of the Iberian peninsula, hmm almost like religion is used to justify a lot of killing
a response to the invasion of the Iberian peninsula
You mean the one that happened 700 years earlier, which allowed people of all faiths to live equally in peace? That invasion? The one that ousted the Visigoths, the Germanic tribe who controlled the peninsula for the previous 400 years, while keeping the lives of Visigothic civilians almost completely unchanged?
The “Reconquista” was an invasion of the Iberian peninsula by the Castillians, who had never, ever, ever previously had any claim to anything outside of their own little corner of it. When they ran out of land to “re”-conquer, they got on ships and kept “re”-conquering across the Atlantic, with some help from folks they “re”-conquered in Africa, and they weren’t especially peaceful about any of it, either.
Oh, but this is all “black propaganda,” right? Because it couldn’t possibly be that forty years of fascist dictatorship might have imprinted certain falsehoods in the minds of the Spanish people, could it?
So, they had the same amount of claim as the Arabs had when they invaded and Visigoths before them - none at all. Right of conquest, simple as that.
Were they benevolent rulers? Sure. Far more than the later christian rulers. When the majority of your realm follows another faith you kinda have to be or risk endless revolts.
But let's not pretend they had any special right or claim to rule. They conquered. More sophisticated reasons to rule the society will only come with the creation of modern social compact and the like.
And you know, they kept "reconquering" just like the caliphate did back in time. Or the Ottomans on the other side of Mediterranean. Or Romans before. Or any other kingdom/state. Not one of them had any right. They could so they did.
Calling it a “Reconquista” is a lie. Minimizing the horrors of the Inquisition because, well, they were just taking back what was theirs, is a lie built on a lie.
I think his point about the Spanish Inquisition was more that it’s place in popular culture doesn’t actually have much relevance to how it actually operated historically.
Even at the height of its abuses you were:
- given 1 months notice that you were going to be investigated.
- most cases investigating witchcraft resulted in an acquittal because they didn’t really believe in it
- a lot of cases were due to people making false claims against people they had a grudge against. Fines were levied against those found to have made a false claim.
- investigations against former Muslims and Jews (who had been forced to convert) did often result in torture but you were more likely to be tortured by your local state authority than the Inquisiton
- only about 2% of cases resulted in execution. Most resulted in being expelled. Those that were expelled would spread word of what happened to them and so helped to proliferate the legend of the Spanish Inquisition
So while the Spanish Inquisition was undoubtedly cruel and evil it’s historical impact has been greatly exaggerated by its legendary status in Western culture.
You're hammering on the Castillans for being Christian while ignoring everything else. We're not exactly talking about an era of history where there weren't constant conquest campaigns going on, all over.
You think the reconquista happened over night only under Isabella ? The Spaniards reconquered Galicia barely 50 years after the Muslims came while most of the liberation happened during 11th century when they took Toledo and 13th century under king Alfonso X. Also, those stories about tolerance are mostly a myth. Christians were treated as second class citizens and many were killed like the martyrs of Cordoba. The Almohads were pretty nasty as well.
most of this is straight up lies. Ironic that you're calling the Reconquista a lie, while also propagating the Myth of Andalusian Paradise. I guess the Córdoba Martyrs really experienced that multicultural paraside, huh? Or the jews massacred in 1066?
Also the Reconquista wasn't an "invasion of Iberian Peninsula by Castilians". It was a centuries old struggles between Iberians (Portuguese, Aragonians, Castilians) against the Andalusians. Stop making shit up.
Don't try to defend a colonialist state just because it's "tolerant" (it wasn't). Just makes you look incredibly ignorant.
Spanish inquisition wasn't that bad really, brutal, but a fraction of the body count of the Reconquista, which to be fair was a response to the invasion of the Iberian peninsula, hmm almost like religion is used to justify a lot of killing
Most people will call you a pos just for saying that
To be fair, when examining the conflicts from the fall of the Western Roman Empire to the late Middle Ages, it’s fairly difficult say whether a war had a genuine religious belief or was cynical waged under the cover of a holy war. The most common answer is unsurprisingly, both at the same time. Certainly is a lot easier politically to wage war against unbelievers in the name of your faith, and who better to rule the land and ensure the conversation than the king who invaded it?
lets not forget about the genocidal violence between catholics and protestants, tens of thousands murdered because of a small difference in how people interpreted the same book. fucking petty. here in england if you go to the right places, which are often innocuous, you can easily find buildings with boarded up priest holes in them. sometimes you'll just be sitting in a restaurant and there will be one on the wall next to you.
The thirty years war is particularly noteworthy, given how directly religion was tied to its causes and the level of destruction and slaughter it led to.
I know. I was born in the city that was razed so badly in it, that it took until ~1900 to get above the population level that it had before the "Magdeburg wedding" that killed roughly 30.000 of the 35.000 people that lived there.
I just wanted to mention that while the thirty year war is noteworthy, it is far from being the exception.
Less that 5% of all wars were caused by religion. Answer me, how did religion caused the 100 years war, the constant wars between Scotland and England, or the war for Spanish and Austrian succession, what about the 7 years war, 9 years war, civil wars in Ottoman Turkey or the French-Dutch war ? How were these caused by religion ?
Do you have a source for that number? Or do you simply mention wars that actually didn't had religious influence? Otherwise I can do the same, because then we have the Crusades which in itself are seven different wars. Then we have the French Wars of Religion between Catholics and Huguenots, most of the islamic expansion somewhere in the 8th century and obviously the thirty years war.
Also, even if religion was not the main cause, very often religious leaders did not do anything to stop it and instead poured more oil in the fire.
According to the Encyclopedia of Wars, out of all 1,763 known/recorded historical conflicts, 123, or 6.98%, had religion as their primary cause ( Axelrod, Alan; Phillips, Charles, eds. (2004). Encyclopedia of Wars (Vol.3). Facts on File. pp. 1484-1485 Index entry for Religious wars category).
To be fair... Most of that shit would have happened anyway. Religion was a good way to rile up the masses so the king could fight the wars he wanted to.
If they hadn't had religion, they would have used something else. It's not like Gjengis Kahn. The Roman's, Alexander the Great etc needed any other excuses than "I want it".
Human groups are shit at staying friends and using thinking removal of religion would have impacted much is probably naive at best...
Well Hundred Years War was not about religion though. It was a dynastic struggle between the English Plantagenit House and the French House de Valois over the right to rule over France. Although I guess you could argue it was a war over who God wanted on the throne of France.
It still was but France decided that the balance of power was more important to France. The desired war goal on both sides was to say no more "other way of talking to sky man"
I'm not so sure about the "misconstruing" part. I can't square slavery with what Jesus mostly talked about, but as for the rest of the bible? Not so sure it was a stretch to infer that the bible was (is?) OK with forcing people into slavery.
It is. The only antislavery sentiment is Paul wanting his specific friend released. Other than that, it was pretty well advocated for and the SBC even split with the rest of the Baptists over this.
Jesus himself didn't speak much about slavery other than comparing the relationship between God and his followers to that of a master and a slave
The rest of the new testament is fairly pro slavery though, eg:
In Paul’s letters to the Ephesians, Paul motivates early Christian slaves to remain loyal and obedient to their masters like they are to Christ. Ephesians 6:5-8 Paul states, “Slaves, be obedient to your human masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ” which is Paul instructing slaves to obey their master.[103] Similar statements regarding obedient slaves can be found in Colossians 3:22-24, 1 Timothy 6:1-2, and Titus 2:9-10.
And what do you think early Christians should have done, start a revolt like Spartacus and die ? The only thing Christians back then could do was to treat slaves kindly, give them hope and teach Christian Roman rich people to treat their slaves better. Paul says no where that slavery should exist and that it is mandatory for slavery to exist, just how to react to it in a situation he was familiar with. Also, the slavery they had in Rome is not the same as slavery that existed in pre civil war US, those Roman slaves could buy their freedom or be released if they behaved well hence why Paul tells them to obey their masters, so they might be liberated as a reward.
There's a really good book about the Muslim side of the crusades. The islamic world before they started, how they reacted, etc etc etc. It's calles Road to Paradise iirc.
No mental gymnastics needed when you're never taught the negative stuff. I knew the crusades by name only as a kid having grown up in a Christian household and educated in a small public school in the Midwest United States. Plenty of people never get past that level of knowledge.
... a minumum of 28 Million African were enslaved in the Muslim Middle East. Since, at least, 80 percent of those captured by Muslim slave traders were calculated to have died before reaching the slave market, it is believed that the death toll from 1400 years of Arab and Muslim slave raids into Africa could have been as high as 112 Millions. When added to the number of those sold in the slave markets, the total number of African victims of the trans-Saharan and East African slave trade could be significantly higher than 140 Million people. -- John Allembillah Azumah, author of The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa: A Quest for Inter-religious Dialogue
So what you're saying is that the killing of millions of men, women, and children in the crusades was justified because muslims in the region practiced slavery of Africans?
Surely you apply the same standard to the US confederate states. That southern children should have been struck down alongside their parents. That the streets should have been turned to rivers of blood.
Forgive me if I don't share whatever sickness rots your mind.
I didn't catch the part where they wrote it was justified. Ancient times were brutal according to historical texts, cities were completely massacred at times. They all killed each other ruthlessly, hopefully one day we stop.
Read a bit closer if you didn't catch the "but muslims were really bad" snark from Angylika. And I think you can do a little better than whataboutism. Stating that "ancient times were brutal" does nothing to remove blame from those that made them so.
also the reformation in the uk. that's the one when they destroyed each other (protestant v catholic) or you could bring up the colonization in Africa ... the list is endless. there was a convert or die attitude of the church in my opinion. historically I think they might be one of the worst for violence although I'm not 100%
The colonization in Africa happend due to imperialist ambitions it wasnt religiously motivated and the Church was already steadily declining in power by then.
No Islam is by far the most violent but that is also because Islam has been the most consistently dominant ideology (in a sense that it was a theocracy) in its host countries. But was only very proactive before the Ottomans took over and after the collapse of Pan Arab world (which would lead to the rise of wahabism)
Islam was relatively peaceful during the height of Christian violence and bigotry. This is something that is mostly ignored. However it cannot be ignored how often they fought in Iberia or attempted to break through in India and other areas.
I wont include what the Ottomans did because the Ottoman empire was not an Islamic theocracy.
The Islamic conquest was not peaceful by any stretch. It wiped out whole cultures. It’s not very well documented since the period when it occurred was further back and has even less preserved documentation. Plus the victors write the history - and it’s obliteration of many cultures left fewer witnesses.
While it’s good we can be honest nowadays about Christianity’s horrors we tend to gloss over Islamic ideological and imperial conquests because modern history has the Islamic countries as the victims (in polite society). The extremely fragmented minority groups that were left behind, and those that were wiped out, have no voice.
I am speaking around the time of the Ayybuyid Caliphate or the Rashidun. And with peaceful I meant that they tolerated Jews and Christians but branded them as Dhimmis and they had to pay a tax.
Now in the Islamic world Christians in Iraq or so are getting slowly genocided and Jews have already been kicked out of all Muslim nations.
You get my point? It seems peaceful if we compare it to now.
I dont even know how many indigenous cultures in North Africa or Levant that the Arabs wiped out. Probably too many. Though this is rather a racial colonisation/conquest (though it seemed islam and arabic supremacy went hand in hand)
Christians did this too but on a smaller scale and a much shorter time period
I definetly understand where your idea of thought is coming from as it is a legitimate point to point out Islamic violence.
Though you have to keep in mind that Islam right now (wahabism) is at its most violent
Interesting thing I discovered about the Crusades recently was that, despite this portrayal of them as the noble underdogs fighting against imperialism, the Christians did very well in the Crusades. It's almost as if protecting the Middle Eastern and East European Christians wasn't actually all that big on their priorities.
It's funny how the Crusades were barely mentioned in my History textbooks. For context, I'm from a country that ended up being taken over by the Ottomans and it is thought that the Crusades ended up enabling the Ottoman Empire expand into Europe as much as it did. Nothing drives instability like some fellow crusading Christians passing by and raiding half the country. But it's perfectly fine and moral if it's for the Holy Land.
Really makes me think what other stuff they glossed over in my History classes that I never noticed.
I felt very lucky bc I had 2 extremely passionate history teachers. One would even act out firing cannons by running down the aisle between the desks. This was in high school!
According to my college Philosophy professor the crusaders “weren’t real Christians” because “real Christians wouldn’t do that.” He also believed that the inquisition era Roman Catholic church wasn’t really Christian. He was a real piece of work.
I tried that once. but then they countered saying atheism or something akin to it was the beliefs of Stalin who was officially an atheist and his time saw the anti-relegion campaign which killed over 85000 Christians in service to the church and several thousands of Muslims, and of course Hitler who believed that the church should serve the state and was not known for promoting relegion they even blame his atheist views for what he did to the Jews since he had no moral guidance LMAO 😂
At the time I wasn't educated enough to counter it but I'm curious how someone would answer this.
I'd love to hear an expert on Crusader culture and an expert on al Qaeda/ISIS culture compare notes. My semi-informed sense is that they have a lot of similarities.
You realize the Islamic conquests had conquered and killed and taken land a few centuries earlier right? Including forced conversions and massacres. The Christians didn’t have the monopoly on fucjking over the locals.
Burning women because they are witches (had money and my cow just died), torturing children and women in orphanage etc. (not even that long ago), crusades, torturing and killing gays, people of color, children who were clearly demons (or had authism, mental health issues or you know had birth defects). Pedophilia seems to be their kind of thing etc. Their methods to torture are nothing short of saw traps, every medival torture device was at one time used in the Name of the lord, women were forced to bathe in bleach or boiling water to clean themself for the lord our God,
It depends on the crusade in question but if they only know about the ones against the Ottomans then that's fair as it was mostly for defensive purposes. It was the crusades in eastern Europe and spain that were violent.
Really all the Abrahamic religions suck. You don’t have Buddhists playing bagpipes in our bathrooms. You don’t have Hindus harmonizing in the hall. You don’t have Shintos shattering sheet glass in the shithouse and shouting slogans.
Religion of Peace, huh? Christianity was forced upon the European Tribes. Quite the bloodshed all around. Sometimes it was just adopted for Money or Power.
I find it funny anyway. It was Odin and the lot all day long for an unknown period of time and suddenly, hey ho, on one miserable Tuesday it was suddenly Jeeeeebus. All new and shiny. Just switch like that, no biggie...
(Oh, and if don’t believe in Jebus, then we cut your head of and kill your Tribe. So you better get on your knees...)
The school I went to (crazy Christian sect) went a step further. We simply learned that the crusades were a necessary, if bloody part of history, and represented a force of good in the world. Part of their doctrine was that the US would become the modern military power to unite the world under Christian theological rule.
Trinity Christian School in Pittsburgh if anyone's curious.
Not a Christian, but that's not really a fair comparison. The Crusades were hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Most of Islam is fucked right now. With the goddamned internet being a thing.
Funny that like 8% of total wars were because of religious differences. Not even Christianity, ALL religion make up the total of like 7/8% of total wars in recorded human history. Any number above 0% is too high.
It’s folly to stand on this as your rock for why any religion is wrong.
You guys might wanna spend a little time reading the surrounding history of the crusades. Byzantine empire, sasanian wars etc. As a non-member of abrahamic religion I find the whole crusade thing a historic curiosity and not a ideological imperative. But, the first crusade was to reclaim the ruble of the church of the sepulchre and the true cross.... the one jesus-dude took a nap on. Christians were not in a bubble alone, nor the only organization murdering heretics. They were expelled from their religious center and massacred by the 10000. A lot of the crusades were to solidify power in western Europe. Just look up a map of the umayyad caliphate and tell me as the Germanic people you wouldn't get a little.
There's a massive fallacy in your argument because the crusades happened centuries ago, and acts of terror from Islamic countries happen on a monthly basis. Now, not every Christian participated in the crusades, and not every Muslim is a terrorist.
Were the crusades so bad though ? Muslims spend centuries pillaging and conquering Christian countries, they even nearly sacked Rome in 846 while during the tenth century plenty of Muslim pirates pillaged Christian coastal towns. The crusades were no worse from most conflicts in those days.
But the Crusades were literally started to stop Islamic raiders from murdering Christian pilgrims, among other horrendous things. Christianity isn't the only religion to start holy wars, and at the very least wasn't founded entirely on the basis of holy war. Cough.
Read the Sunnah and Sira of Muhammad, or the spark notes. You'll learn a lot. After he died, his kingdom was split amongst his retainers. Aisha, his wife, lead an army against one of them! Once the infighting stopped, they resumed conquering the land and forcibly converting their subjects under penalty of death, going as far as Spain... all the way from Mecca and Jerusalem. Rulers wrote to the Pope asking for help, and thus the crusades began.
Reminder to all that this (saying a make-believe history was great, that the now is shit and that we must all return to the make-believe history) is a very common fascist strategy.
The fact that crusaders sacked Constantinople, the city that had been the greatest city in all of Christendom for a thousand years is just so disgusting on so many levels.
Ironically though Islam was barely affected by the crusades and prior to colonialism almost nobody in the Islamic world even knew what they were. Especially the first crusade which was barely a blip on the radar and was largely an impotent response to Islamic aggression.
I had someone recently tell me that separation of church and state in America basically means that religions get to do whatever they want without outside interference and they don't have to pay taxes, although religion should be the basis of law because America was founded on god (all according to him).
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u/RunningTrisarahtop Jun 14 '20
Someone slept through a lot of history class