Were the crusades really related to religion?
544599
Very much so : they were to secure the holy land and the route to Jerusalem for Christian pilgrims.          America's modern crusade is rather more to secure Palestine for the Jews.
513905
no it was christians who had crusades who killed indiscrimitaly and took their land who really started with terroism. the cathlic church burning and torturing people to convert have killed more people than any muslim nation. I am cathlic so I know our history.
1027924
No. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, \n\nAbout Judaism: "The Jewish faith, unlike other non-Christian religions, is already a response to God's revelation in the Old Covenant. To the Jews "belong the sonship, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ"; "for the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable."\n\nAbout Islam: The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day.\n\nAbout other non-Christian religions: All nations form but one community. This is so because all stem from the one stock which God created to people the entire earth, and also because all share a common destiny, namely God. His providence, evident goodness, and saving designs extend to all against the day when the elect are gathered together in the holy city.\n\nWith love in Christ.
602308
There was a time in European history where the Church held absolute sway in the appointment and endorsement of political rulers, as well as their own "police force" of inquisitors where free-thinkers and political opponents were burned, tortured, and murdered.  Wars were repeatedely fought against the Muslim in Muslim lands to distract and divide the folks at home and to keep the people militarized and the money flowing into the coffers of the tyrannical kings.  This period was affectionately known as "The Dark Ages" and "Medievel Age" appropriately.  Woe betide the man who willfully repeats disastrous history.
767170
Islam is a religion that has far more relevance for certain people than Christianity, which has often been used as a tool of oppression. Mostly it was spread by the byzantine then Ottoman empire as was behind much learning and technological advances. \nThe Middle Ages are not refered to as the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages were the period after the fall of Rome to the 11th century and are so called because we don't know much about what happened due to a lack of written evidence.
488925
I think so. Religion usually starts out as an attempt at some sort of spiritual connection and then evolves into a force for exerting control and power over people. One example is the religion of Islam. It was started by Muhammad as "submission," but others who used Islam after Muhammad's death certainly didn't have that in mind. One example of this is the Umayyad caliphate. At first, it ruled its conquered places without attempting to impose religion upon them. Instead, they would have soldiers stay in places separate from the others in conquered lands. They found, however, that this was not effective at all. Because of this, they then used Islam as a unifying force; they converted the conquered peoples to Islam because, under the banner of religion, they would be easier to control. This is an example of Muslims using their religion as a political tool. Of course, there is the other example of terrorists and suicide bombers who believe that they will get 72 virgins for extinguishing the lives of many in the name of Allah. In my opinion, though, the Quran would support that kind of behavior because Muhammad slaughtered many in Mecca so that he could establish Islam there. So, I guess that wouldn't be a misuse of their religion. \nAnother example is the religion of Christianity. Used by the Catholic Church, it then warped into something that can hardly be recognized as Christianity. It has a pope, a so-called "vicar of Christ" who could exercise power over Christians by changing doctrine and teachings at whim. This is nowhere in the Bible. Also, look at the atrocities committed in the name of Islam. The Spanish Inquisition, which killed many Jews and Muslims and ended with the capture of Granada in 1492, was simply disgraceful. There was also the Crusades. Though, to a regular person, it seemed like a religious conflict for the capture of Jerusalem, it had a political cause. King Alexius I of the Byzantine Empire was simply afraid that the invading Seljuk Turks would capture his land. For this reason, he went to Pope Urban II and asked him for help in beating them back. And then it evolved into "Deus lo volt!" (or whatever the Latin expression is) and killing the Muslims and capturing Jerusalem and whatever. Besides, the Roman soldiers who were supposed to be working for the Christians attacked the Christian city of Acre. So, as you can see, there were many other interests in the Crusades disguised under religion. Another is Christianity used as justification for discrimination. One example of this is the Jews. They were simply hated, especially because they went into business, which, according to Catholic doctrine, was more or less not spiritual or holy or whatever. Because of this, the Jews in the middle ages were blamed for a lot of things. If they ever ran out of money, they would criticize them for lending too much money with their banks. The Catholic Church even tried to blame the Jews for the Black Plague, saying that they poisoned the wells.\nThe point is that religion has been abused a lot and it continues even today.
649180
the crusades are when the muslims and Christians were fighting for Jerusalem. They were known as the "Holy Wars", and there were eight crusades over all. The first four were the most famous. here's your source:
736101
All most religions are is a series of laws.  So, the answer to that question is yes, but it works both ways.\n\nMany religous laws were born from political, social or historical events that the church (or leaders) felt the need to address.\n\nMost first year law books on the orgins of law would support you thesis.
1027429
Most certainly... consider some of the following:\n\nOttoman Empire:\n"In the 16th and 17th centuries, the Ottoman Empire was among the world's most powerful political entities... On several occasions, the Ottoman army invaded central Europe, laying siege to Vienna in 1529 and again in 1683 in an attempt to conquer the Habsburg domain, and was finally repulsed only by great coalitions of European powers at sea and on land... \n\nOttomans: Adoption of Islam:\nBefore adopting Islam—a process that was greatly facilitated by the Abbasid victory at the 751 CE Battle of Talas, which ensured Abbasid influence in Central Asia—the Turkic peoples practised a variety of shamanism. After this battle, many of the various Turkic tribes—including the Oghuz Turks, who were the ancestors of both the Seljuks and the Ottomans—gradually converted to Islam, and brought the religion with them to Anatolia beginning in the 11th century CE...\n\nOttomans: Diversity\n...One of the successes of the Ottoman Empire was the unity that it brought about among its highly varied population. While the main reason was the military might and heavyhandedness in newly invaded territories, one other indirect source of this unity was allowed for by the laws of Islam, which stated that Muslims, Christians, and Jews—who constituted the vast majority of the Ottoman population—were all related in that they were "People of the Book" (Arabic: اهل الكتاب; ahl al-Kitâb). \n\nOttomans: Slavery\nOttomans were coming from a nomadic nation, in which slavery was very distant to the social structure. Also, from the Islamic perspective, the Kuran specifically states "everyone is same", although the practice showed differences based on cultures, which Islam and Slavery covers these perspectives, specifically Ottoman application on their domain was not approved. However, the ottomans policies were based on millet perspective which each millet had the right to govern their own domain. Trafficking in slaves is expressly forbidden by the Ottoman application of sharia, or Islamic law. For example, by the terms of the sharia, any slaves who were taken could not be kept in the status of slaves if they converted to Islam. It was, in fact, considered an insult to term an Ottoman man as a slave-master, and there were incidents in which Ottomans responded unsympathetically to any who even mentioned the idea of slavery to them.\n-------------------------------------\n-------------------------------------\n\nOther views on "Muslim Imperialism":\n\n"No single definition prevails, but here is a good one: Jihadism engages in or supports the use of force to expand the rule of Islamic law. In other words, it is violent Islamic imperialism. It stands, as one scholar put it 90 years ago, for "the extension by force of arms of the authority of the Muslim state."\n-Jonathan Rauch (www.reason.com)\n\n\nExcerpts from Islamic Imperialism: A History, by Efraim Karsh:\n\n"The birth of Islam," writes Karsh, "was inextricably linked with the creation of a world empire, and its universalism was inherently imperialist." Karsh cites, for example, the Prophet's farewell address to his followers: "I was ordered to fight all men until they say, 'There is no god but Allah.' " Muhammad, Karsh writes, spent his last decade fighting to unify Arabia under his reign; within a decade of his death, Islamic conquest had already built an Arab-Muslim empire, "one of the most remarkable examples of empire-building in world history."\n\n---------------------------\n\nMuslim Invasion of India (18th & 19th Century):\n\n"The Muslim chieftains were inviting other Islamic imperialists from across the border to come and rescue the earlier Islamic imperialists out of the morass...\n\n...On the eve of the Islamic invasion, India was witnessing a number of Hindu princes fighting among themselves for supremac
378186
Jihad is similar to the Christian Crusades.  Both were created by extremists looking to build their own power base and did not truly have anything to do with God, Islam or Christianity.\n\nLots of terrible things were and are being done in the name of God, but they're really all about men seeking power and control...
177353
Christianity and Islam
223212
http://crusades.boisestate.edu/Europe/france/05.shtml
887650
Catholicism is most definitely NOT Christianity. If you people knew both of the religions, you would be able to make the distinctions between the two. Christianity may have derived from Catholicism, but they are not the same things.\n\nJust thought I'd clear that up...
519068
Nope.  Christianity swept the world but, that doesn't make any other religion invalid.  If it did, there would be no other religions anymore.
1128354
Well, Revelation18:24  refers to false religion (Chirstendom included) as being responsible for "the blood of prophets and of holy ones and of all those who have been slaughtered on the earth". So I would say quite a few. Of course there is a religion that refuses to participate in warfare and thus cannot be held accountable for the atrocities...(Isaiah 2:3, 4)
456076
Both. The southern section was largely muslim with European-influenced Catholic populations in the northern regions during the early crusades, though the efforts of the Europeans would result in the spread of Catholicism throughout Spain.
500122
What's this got to do with religion?