this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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Well the bottom picture was them trying to reclaim lost lands. Neither event was clean.
Meme should show Christianity spreading to the new world. Much more one sided slaughter.
Are you referring to the Crusades? Those weren't really Christians "trying to reclaim lost lands," since the Middle East was never "owned" by Christians. Christianity, especially Catholicism never really took root in the Middle East until much later, so the Pope declaring that all good Christians should join the Crusades really was a war of aggression.
On the other hand, you could be referring to the reclamation of Spain, but I don't think that's what that painting is depicting.
4th-7th centuries AD under the Eastern Roman Empire call that into question.
Fair enough. I guess I should say that the group calling for the "reclamation" of the Middle East for Christianity was not the indigenous people. The Romans were a colonial power in the Middle East, so saying that a Roman Pope could call for a reclamation is like Great Britain trying to reclaim India.
While I may have gone too far in saying Christianity has not taken root in the Middle East, I stand by my central thesis that the Crusades were wars of aggression.
I mean, if we're going that route, the Turco-Persian Muslims occupying the Levant at the time were a colonial power there too, and the Levant only came under Muslim control in the first place because it was quite literally conquered by non-native inland Arab tribes from a Byzantine-Christian majority in the 7th century.
Agreed there.
History is mostly a great play of conquering powers deciding who gets to tax the starving masses.