Are Christians and North American's cowards?

[sapphi_snake]

pizzahut451 said:

mai said:

non-gravity said:

The Crusades were a reaction to the expansion of Islam to places where Christians had been before.

On ideological level yes, but it's quite complex phenomenon to describe in one sentence given demography of those who participated in the Crusades. Often certain events of the Crusades have nothing to do with being anti-Islamic, hence the Christian Orthodox people who suffered from, simply put, brigandish raids of the crusaders.

All in all, attempts to present Christianity as 'tolerant' religion that laid down the foundations of modern morale of western world are a bit off. If the Crusades towards Islamic world could be explained as reactionary move, how'd you explain Northern Crusades against the Orthodox then, or internal oppression of heretics through the Inquisition etc.? Christianity as religious organization, i.e. Christian Church in it's original form (Roman Catholic Church), is hardly tolerant and used to be very expansionist (the same applies to the Orthodox Church). If anything laid such foundations, this's probably Protestant morale. Bottomline is... 'tolerance' is to a great extent is a phenomenon of modern western world morale, hardly Christinaity has anything to do with it.

original christian chruch is orthodox church not roman catholic

The Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church were one and the same before the schism. Back then it was simply the Christian Church.