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Originally posted by Dave:
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Muslims have certainly lived in Christian lands as well.
Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis disagrees with you. That is something which only happened in very recent times. Lewis says in his book, "What Went Wrong?" that Muslims hated coming to the backwaters of Europe, and that in fact until the decline of the Ottomans, Jews much preferred the tolerance of Islam to the murderous antagonism of Christendom.
I was thinking of modern times, from the European colonial period forward.
I acknowledge that in the Middle Ages, beginning with The Inquisition, that it was a very bad time for Jews to be living in Spain. Although Holland became a place where Jews could live in relative freedom. Areas of Southern Europe directly under the rule of Rome were the worst places for Jews, and Muslims, and for non-Catholic Christians as well, during the Inquisition.
And again, I see the Medeival Roman Catholic church as not representative of true Christianity, as I already outlined above.

And again, I think it is undeniable that Islam had invaded all of Spain and Portugal, and much of the Mediterranean portion of Southern France. Regardless of how it is spun otherwise, the Crusades and Inquisition were a clear backlash to a Muslim invader that has been expelled, and at this point, anyone in those re-conquered regions (Spain particularly) who were other than Christian were viewed with suspicion and brutal treatment.

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Originally posted by Dave:

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Dave the Wonder Boy:
Universities, science, humanitarian aid, hospitals, and democracy are all innovations that came from the Christian community.
Universities, democracy, and science came from ancient Greece, a society which both Christendom and Islam claim as their root.

The word "hospital" comes from the Knights Hospitaller, a sect of Christians who helped the injured on the battlefields of the Crusades. But for most of the past 1000 years Muslim doctors were much superior to Western doctors.

"Humanitarian aid" is a modern concept hardly unique to Christian countries.
Ah, but it began as part of Christian outreach, to care for the poor.
In Roman times, unwanted children were left in the streets to die. Christians first created orphanages to care for unwanted children.

The Salvation Army, and the Red Cross, are likewise organizations that began for the sick and the poor, that were later imitated by other cultures.
The Red Crescent in the Muslim world is an offshoot, emulating the example of the earlier Red Cross. There was no similar organization before Christians brought it to the Muslim world.


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Originally posted by Dave:

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Dave the Wonder Boy:
Christianity is far more peaceful at its root, and in its first 300 years, never had an army fight and conquer in its name.
You're being very selective with your dates. Christians were in sufficient numbers to gather an army in their first 300 years - the Romans would have annihilated them if they had.
They were in sufficient numbers, but didn't try to gather an army, because conquest was not in their beliefs.
It was Constantine, who politically used Christians to serve his own political ambitions, and established the Roman Catholic church to serve his own purposes. The reward was that Christians could, from that point forward, live in Rome and practice their religion without persecution.
My dates are not "convenient", they reflect --as I made clear above-- the point at which Christianity was hijacked and diverted from its true Biblical teachings, toward the corrupt political/state ambitions of Constantine.


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Originally posted by Dave:

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Dave the Wonder Boy:

And the Inquisition and Crusades were also a direct result of Islamic invasion deep into European/Christian territory. It was more of a taking back what had been taken from them, with some obvious excesses that were done in the name of Christianity, but were clearly more political than religious.
What nonsense! The Spanish Inquisition was established as a pogrom against Jews and the few remaining Muslims in Granada - see http://www.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?search=Spanish+inquisition&go=Go

As for the Crusades, from www.wikipedia.org
As I said, part of an over-reaction after dispelling an invader who had completely occupied Portugal, Spain, and a large portion of France. It is a manifestation of xenophobia toward all non-Christians at that time, by a Christian population who wanted to eliminate the possibility of being over-run again.

Cruel, yes, but understandable.

I think that the atrocities of the Crusaders described in your quoted historical account make it clear that these were not wars fought on Christian principle, but were the ambitious wars of a corrupt few, pursuing political ambition. Their success in driving the Moors out of Spain made them confident to invade the heart of Islam, and re-take the city of Jerusalem (which had, centuries before, been a Christian city, until it was seized by the Muslims in 638 ).

I don't know that Christians had good access to Holy places prior to Crusader invasion of Jerusalem.
I've heard similar notions of "free access" expressed about Jerusalem in recent times, that free access is available to Jews, Christians, and Muslims to Jerusalem and other holy places in modern times, before and after Israel took Jerusalem in 1967. And I've heard the "freedom" of all religions to use these places hotly questioned, in all eras, by all sides. I don't buy that Muslims gave "more free" access to Jerusalem's holy places.

The comparison of what "Crusade" and "Jihad" mean in the Christian and Islamic worlds was actually quite interesting.