A forum member recently questioned my posting of the evils that Christian has perpetrated against Christian and even disbelieved a quote of a high rank Christian just before the sacking of a Christian town. So here is a little history of the “Albigensian Crusade”
Taking the murder of Peter of Castelanu, the church legate, in 1209 CE as an excuse, Pope Innocent declared that the Albigensian (a sect of Christianity that taught among other things that the Church had deviated from the teaching of Jesus from the 3rd century onward) Count of Toulouse, Raymond, was responsible. Innocent then rang the call to arms, threatening any Nobel or Knight that refused to answer this call with excommunication and other ecumenical punishments. Since the major benefit (for the attackers) of 13th century warfare was unlimited looting, there was no need of threats, especially since the Albigensian towns were among the most prosperous in Europe. Needless to say, the nobility of northern France jumped at the chance to plunder the wealthy south and supported the church’s crusade (yes, a crusade against other CHRISTIANS). This crusade lasted 2 decades and resulted in the death of thousands of Christians at the hands of their brothers in religion!
It was contemporarily reported that 20,000 knights and 200,000 foot soldiers led by the bloody Abbot of Citeaux, Arnold and the notorious adventurer Simon de Montfort (familiar to all with any knowledge of English history), descended upon the Albigensians. On June 24th 1209 the campaign began at the first large Albigensian town, Beziers. In his Dialogus Miraculorum, Caesarius of Heisterback recorded that when the Abbot of Citeaux was asked how to distinguish between the heretics and the true Christians he responded, “caedite eos…novit enim Dominus qui sunt eisu “(Show mercy neither to order, or to age, nor to sex…Cathar or Catholic, kill them all…God will know his own). Reporting to the Pope, Abbot Arnold reported they had indeed spared neither rank, age or sex and had massacred 20,000 people. Some historians put this figure at 40,000. 6000 alone were said to have sheltered in the Catholic Church of St. Madeleine and were probably mostly Catholics. It was burned and all inside were murdered. These actions were repeated in each Albigensian town taken, All the inhabitants were put to the sword without distinction of rank, age or sex. Albigensian clergy were met with unbridled ferocity, Simon de Montfort diligently incinerated the heretics, 140 at Minerve, 300 at Lavor, 60 at Le Casses and on and on. It was written of de Montfort that” he ought to wear a crown and be resplendent in the heavens, if by abolishing honor, by making pride victorious, by stimulating evil and extinguishing good, if by killing women and slaughtering infants, one can in this world achieve salvation in Christ.”
Raymond VI offered a peace in 1211, so Innocent stopped the crusade after two years of almost unparalleled butchery, but then yielded to the greed of de Monfort and the crusaders and the fanaticism of the monks and reopened it, prolonging the massacres for another 18 years. The Albigensians were still so strong after two years of the most brutal carnage that, when the pope renewed the crusade in 1214, a fresh hundred thousand “pilgrims” had to be summoned. It proves the scale of the heresy.
Today Christian writers dispute these things, but they are recorded in the bragging words of the Catholics of the time. Innocent boasted that they took five hundred towns and castles from the heretics, and they butchered every man, woman and child in each town when they took it. Noble ladies with their daughters were thrown down wells, and large stones flung upon them. Albigensian knights were hanged in batches of eighty. How could Catholic knights, footsoldiers and monks commit such atrocities, so fearful, as they were, of eternal retribution in the fires of hell? Because Innocent III had granted them absolution in advance as an incentive to do their worst. And they did!
“The accounts of the cruelties and abominations of this crusade are far more terrible to read than any account of Christian martyrdom by the Pagans, and they have the added horror of being indisputably true”. - H G Wells, Crux Ansata

"The Albigensians had defied the Church’s authority, rejected its teaching, and in general thought and acted for themselves. For these sins there was no mercy. The custodians of Christianity unhesitatingly burnt their fellow men persuaded that being burnt to death in a half hour of torment was better than the eternal torment of hell fire. This monstrous belief is still alive among Christians." - M.D. Magee

I have to say, christianity has the bloodiest history of any known religion, yet it has survived to this date and is currently the largest world religion.

I'll have to congradulate them on that. But they need to loosen up a lil bit.

It’s far too easy to blame a Christian for evils done by people who claimed to be Christian. I am simply a Christian because I follow the Christian ideal and the teaching of a pacifist carpenter from Nazareth.

It would be no different for me to cast blame on you for being an American.
Being American is as much an ideal as it is a nationality.

After all, America once supported slavery.
American has committed atrocities in foreign lands.
Americans have killed their neighbors and slaughtered their fellow Americans (Civil War)
In the name of democracy Americans have invaded other countries and killed men women and little children.
America is responsible for destroying entire cities with nuclear weapons.

Should you dissociate yourself with any thing to do with America?

Of course not, because most people who call themselves American are decent good living people. The individuals who commit evil acts could call themselves whatever they chose to call themselves whether it be Christian or American or both.

Irish

while I agree with much of what you say, it does not change the fact that people who considered themselves good Christians killed masses of people who considered themselves good Christians. Whether they really were Christians or not is not the question. They believed themselves Christians, just a you believe yourself a Christian and as such the evil the perpetrated is a good example of how easily a revealed and authoritaritive religion can manipulate their members into doing that which they wouldn't under normal circumstances!

They used any excuse to go to war then, mostly non-religious ones and you know that.

what often is overlooked is the diety is actually emulated and an inspiration, this same diety solves conflict with violence and plagues and turning people to salt and killing offspring and floods etc....."he sets an example and violence is not seen as a harmful solution its seen as a way to handle issues, We learn by example how often is it said be careful of what you do not what you say kids will do as you do not what you say......What would benefit mankind is not more violence but a diety that solves conflict using love and understanding etc.......We are fighting to keep old ways and ineffective ways of problem solving in use....I say if it helps one to have a diety in ones life awesome but a kinder gentler version would actually help mankind and mankind needs help i highly doubt anyone would dispute that......just me 2 cents.....

Ted Bundy probably considers himself an all American male with all American ideals. It does not alter the fact that he is a slime ball murderer and much less than your ideal of all American.
Yes Christianity too has had its share of slime ball murderess but we should no more tar all Christians or Americans with the same brush.

That’s just plain wrong and equally unfair.

Irish

1st Crusade - 1095-1099
2nd Crusade – 1145-1148
3rd Crusades – 1189-1192
4th Crusades – 1201-1204
Albigensian Crusade – 1209-1229
5th Crusade – 1217-1221
6th Crusade – 1228-1244
7th Crusade – 1248-1254
8th Crusade – 1270
9th Crusade – 1270-1272
Northern Crusades – 1193-1410
It wasn’t until the 14th century that European wars (not minor skirmishes between petty kinglets) really became political.

That is exactly what I was referring to.
Constant fighting was in their culture before Christianity came on the scene and it did not really change too much after it came.

Christendom was more or less their first basis for a large alliance, an organized frame to work off of similiar to NATO. That is about it. Christianity did not make them any more warlike than they already were.

Bella-Angelique, are you comparing NATO , the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an international security force , to those that organized and executed the crusades?

NATO came into existence with the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949. The security force came into existence so as to enforce the terms of the treaty.

Article 5 (V) of the Treaty is my point:

(Sic)"....The key section of the treaty was Article V which committed each member state to consider an armed attack against one state to be an armed attack against all states. The treaty was created with an armed attack by the Soviet Union against Western Europe in mind, but the mutual self-defense clause was never invoked during the Cold War. Rather, it was invoked for the first time in 2001 in response to the September 11, 2001 attacks against the World Trade Center and The Pentagon in Operation Eagle Assist.

In the United States, the treaty was approved by the Senate in a vote of 82 to 13 on July 21, 1949."

Bella, it is so strange how you attempt to twist things. The subject here is not how warlike the Europeans were in the 13th century and prior, but how main line Christians killed other Christians because they didn't believe the same dogma as the main line Christians did. Attempting to twist the subject to how warlike the Europeans were is a straw man and really doesn't work. And if you will read your bible, the precusors of Christianity were quite warlike themselves, so what doe warlike have to do with the fact that I was pointing out that CHRISTIANS WERE KILLING CHRISTIANS?

It means that they were doing exactly the types of behavior they would have done without any edicts from any clergy, and have without any directions from any clergy right up through to the present time.

Religion was used as an excuse and was not a cause. If it had truly been the cause then as pointed out in reams of posts, there would have been more evidence of the religion being practiced then what there was.

LOL Build that straw man all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that it was Christians killing Christians at the implicit orders of the supreme representatives of their religion. It not only could happen today, it has happened and continues to happen (Check the Balkans and Africa). Good try but no seegar!

It should be noted that in Beziers where this massacre took place it is estimated that there were only a few hundred Cathar Perfecti or Elders in the town. So to take a conservative estimate over 19,000 people were massacred to eliminate a few hundred Perfecti. The Church was that afraid of the Cathar that these actions were seen as acceptable.

In other towns, the Crusaders said hand over the Cathar and we will spare the town, the townspeople refused to hand them over. That is the respect the Cathar had from the Christians. The Cathar were seen as "good Christians" whereas the Church was seen as corrupt.

Some say this massacre of the Cathar destroyed an early "Renaissance" that was blooming in Southern France, if true the Church again hindered human advancement for their own goals of power.

The Cathar were another Gnostic movement that the Church went to great lengths to eliminate. Like other Gnostics the Cathar believed that the God of the Church of Rome was an evil ignorant God and not the Father Jesus spoke of. For this belief they were slaughtered but not surprisingly to them, for how else would the followers of an evil God act?





In 1945 with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, the victory of the Church over the Cathar and other Gnostic groups was reversed. The texts are back, the internet has spread them all over the world and the Church's mission to eliminate all traces of the Heresy ultimately failed. The Heresy is the truth and the truth cannot be hidden forever.

Well I guess we have our answer about NATO's relativity to holy wars. All hail the gift of the artful dodger.

Relative to the history of the war god, yahweh and his minions and given the contemporary MidE situation at present, I think it's on topic to remember the jews have quite an offensive campaign history of holy wars also.

And to this day are engaged in what many may consider the "Ban" (Translated to mean; "completely destroyed" or "devoted") or "Law of Anathema", against Palestine/Muslim faith.
Wherein they believe Yahweh god fights with them and as such they derive the authority to commit to such campaigns, from Deuteronomy 20:2-4.

It all reminds me of a game of chess. The faithful are the pawns , the clerical, secular authorities and reinforcements are the back row, and the rule book is the religious text of either opponent, as their god moves the pieces around the board.

What strikes me is that people actually justify the commission of these heinous acts as the will of the creator of all things. If there is only one god, how can there be any other god for any other people to worship, and that makes it necessary to kill them for it!? How can "god" ever be made jealous?!
Free will indeed! Choose and die.

They say the devil is the great deceiver and yet that spirit that compels holy war's in it's name, is truly that. Evil and blood thirsty , that murders by proxy and calls it divine and it's agents blessed for the blood letting. How full the heavens must be , how stoked are the fires of hell, with the souls of the faithful that believed it so, because they were told it is gods will the life "he" gave them end like that.

For Cathars/Albigensians, Satan was the God of this world, the visible, temporal and material world, and, as Jehovah, inspired the malevolent parts of the Old Testament. He is the lord of the physical person which is decaying, of the flesh which corrupts and makes people captives to desire and sin, of the body of death.

Bravo the bold! True Mako and yet, there shall no doubt be some believers that do not believe that possible.

Isn't it fascinating how a holy text of any faith can be construed by the faithful as divine or gods word, until the evil starts to rise from the text on the page, in which case it then becomes relegated to excuses like; context and misinterpretation!?

Bella i guess you didn't read my post, the diety uses violence to solve issues, that violence is the cause ideas become behavior, and the arguement often used is we are inherently prone to horrible behavior anyways so whats the issue,,the issue is when one seeks inward one rarely finds violence and killing as a means to solve anything.... Its an eye for an eye beleif structure that is the foundation of religion and that is what mako is exploring...it is the religion it is the people who follow the religion they are one and the same.....i have lost a sister to murder i never once found a desie lurking inside me to want to kill the guy, nor did my mother it would of not brought my sister back nor solved anything or as is so popular made us feel better... no one feels better after a murder many are harmed...Our religions are more harmful then helpful in order to get beyond this violence thing we need to choose love to solve things ...Love will make a way , few give it a chance...... when we are advocting violence as the only posssible means to solve things we have failed as a humainty....

Case in point…this was posted on another thread and really shows the Christian thinking. The question posted was:

“Now this is just hypothetical but if your god asked you to kill lets say 3 certain people even though these 3 people had not done really anything wrong if he asked you to kill them because it would bring eternal happiness to everyone or that it would save everyones souls and give them a place with god WOULD you do it.”

And the answer (from a Christian) was:

“Hypothetical, yes.

I don't like your example, but I'd have to say being that I obey what God commands, then yes, I would do what he told me to do.”

The Church had the people of the former Roman Empire believing that it was the conduit from God himself and if they told them to destroy someone, they would….BECAUSE GOD TOLD THEM TO!!! Scary isn’t it, that such thinking still exists in the 21st century.

For Andrea Yates it was Satan.
Hopefully earlier methods of detection and intervention will help prevent those types of tradgedies in the future.

Hi Sheri.
I quickly went back to previous posts and I agree that moderating most faiths with the emphasis on love is best also.
Fundementalism is virtually always a problem.

thanks for reading it bella , Love does seem to be a solution we can use more of and its nice to see we agree ...

yes it is scary.....

there are always zealots and crazy people in every group. some manage to get loose and usurp power and wreak havoc. Christians have some. but not all are like that. many.many more are not.

randomhit10

Whole heartedly agree with you....however, it is the weird ones that give the religion a bad name....

And god allowed these evils to be performed in his name. And it can not be considered an excuse because the fact is that the majority of people in those days agreed with that form of Christianity. Therefore that IS what Christianity was about at that time. Indeed those who say that these people have twisted their faith would most likely have been in the vast minority and as such would have been considered heretical.






What is new here. I am studying astronomy as an elective at UNI and looking at the way that the Catholic church forced the Ptolmeyic (earth centered) universe on the world is shocking. Most people think that the Heliocentric universe was first described by Copernicus but in fact the ancient greeks also considered it.

Over the next 1500 years many people were burnt and imprisoned for trying to release the truth. Indeed look at Galileo Galilie who was one of the greatest astronomers of all time. He spent the last ten years of his life in house arrest due to the fact that he wanted to reveal the truth.

So it is not much of a revelation that Christianity in general and Roman Catholocism specifically has been used to slow progess. But this is similar to many dictators for change will eventually destroy all bad forms of government and so dictators such as Hussein, Qhadaffi and the Roman Catholic Church try to prevent change.


Just a thought..........

Actually even christ said he wasn't there to bring peace but rather a sword




Murdering people for their beliefs yeah its a good thing

Don't procreate

I believe the Sermon on the Mount tells us to obey the ancient laws. Those ancient laws (See Deuteronomy 13) tell us to kill anyone who does not believe the way we do.

The penalty for violating most of the Ten Commandments is death. If a fundamentalist actually believes in and carries out these directions, he will quickly find himself on the receiving end of the death penalty, of which he is so fond. Because so few people are in jail for killing violators of the Ten Commandments, I conclude that few, if any, people actually believe them.

I know. They're going to tell me that they can believe in them without acting on them. A religion that you don't believe in enough to act on isn't much of a religion.

So, Mako, the "Christian" who answered your post is speaking very hypothetically, because his god has told him to kill us non-believers and he isn't doing it. I don't think he's a believer, either.


--DJS

P.S.: After study of the Pentateuch, I conclude that that most of the references to "God", "the Almighty", etc., are references to Baal. Several references refer to Hathor and in the story of the burning bush, Moses even addresses God as Aten - a direct reference to Aten/Adon/Adonai, the Egyptian god of the Pharaoh Akenaten. "Jehovah" is refered to in the Pentateuch only three times and the third time says that the first time was a redaction. I think Jehovah went along for the trip, but he was a minor player in the 450-year long Exodus of "Asiatics" from Egypt.

--DJS

Mako, you did not mention the crusades against the bulgarian and bosnian Bogumils in the early 12 th century.
Bogumils were christians with tight conections to the Kathars in France.
The Vatikan called them heretics because the did not use the cross or any other mark of Idolatry. The strongly believed in Jesus' teachings. They did not have priests but eldermen/elderwomen, equaly respected.
There were two crusades against them in Bosnia ( that was back then the state religion)
and after the second crusade Bosnian Bogumils accepted Catholicism as the primary religion. If you are interested in that there are qite a few links about them you can google.

Oh, I am very aware of them, but I figured that I had laid a lot on the plate of the Christians and didn't want them to suffer burn out!
Doug, hypothetical or not, the thinking displayed in that statement belongs in the 11th century, not the 21st century! People are so easy for authority figures to manipulate, that that thinking could be easily translated into the next Christian crusade against almost anyone!