Comments on: Bin Laden: Pope Leading Anti-Islam Crusade

In New Audiotape, Al Qaeda Leader Threatens Severe Reaction Against Europe

[honestabe8]

aren''t all churches *** churches?

[gaye5]

ourtomorrows, you are right, here in Australia we dont see this hatred towards other Christian religions, we all seem to get along pretty well, and as for hating Jews, as far as I am concerned the world has a lot to thank Jews about, they have invented many things that keep us alive today..
It is not Jews who are the problem, no one can tell me that this tiny little nation is a problem.. I think that they are an incrediable people and so do all my friends, and yes we must work together and if we dont we will die. The left has brought into the fray the wording of ''a far right religious'' it was brought in to make christians look just as bad as terrorosts along with trying to divided the people and it is working.. we must not let them call Christians far right as what they now count as far right was once considered the middle of the road by all.. Just because christians have an opinion does not make their opinions any less valuable as some atheists would try to make people think..

[truthword08]

And just for the record, I''m no fan of McCain either, but he is the best candidate to keep us protected from Islamic maniacs. Which should be the top priority of anyone running for the Presidency.

McCain is simply the lesser of the 3 evils, if you will.

[truthword08]

Who''s John McCain''s pastor sir? --Posted by TruthWord08

Name is Hagee, I believe. He also described the Catholic church as a "cult". A view not uncommon among many Proddies, especially of the Bornagain Endtimer variety.
Posted by gkc99

-John McCain does not go to Hagee''s church and has never been a member. So once again, your association is just another way for you to desperately dig for excuses in defense of Obama''s hateful bigoted pastor, for which he has called his "mentor" for 20 years.

Face it, you''re wrong.

And what Hagee said about the Catholic church is right. They paganized the true meaning of the gospels.

Jesus Christ Truth is not meant to be tampered with, and that''s exactly what the Catholic Church did when it was founded 2-300 years after Christ was on earth.

But regardless, Hagee is not John McCain''s pastor. McCain does not attend Hagee''s church.

So keep digging for excuses to defend Obama. That''s all you have left.

[truthword08]

Protestant discrimination against Catholicism. Its ignorant and it is wrong.
Posted by ourtomorrows

-Look sir, I have friends that are Catholics who have told me specifically that they are seeing allot of issues they don''t like about the Catholic church.

The true church is spoken of in the gospels, not by the Roman Catholics.

The Roman Catholics "paganized" the truth of the gospels by adding their own doctrines (IE praying to Mary, the Pappacy, sprinkling babies, purgatory, etc, etc...)

This isn''t meant to hurt anyone''s feelings who''s Catholic, it''s simple historical truth.

Christ isn''t interested in a message of appeasement anyhow. He is Truth.

The gospels are about the Lord Jesus Christ, not a church, not a denomination, and not a paganized version of Christianity that mixes "works" into being saved by grace, as the Catholic church has deemed necessary for salvation.

When you say you must have "works" on top of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross in order to enter the kingdom of Heaven, you are basically looking Christ in the face and saying:

"What you did on the cross was not enough, we don''t believe you when you said "It is finished", so we''re going to add our own man-made rules to accompany the works you finished on the cross for our sins, and tell people that if they don''t follow our rules, they aren''t going to heaven.

This is what the Catholic church has done.

But Mel Gibson was right on with his movie however. I will give him that.

[gunownerdan]

"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."
-- George W. Bush, Sept. 13, 2001

"I don''t know where (Bin Laden) is. You know, I just don''t spend that much time on him....I -- I''ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him."
-- George W. Bush, March 13, 2002
6 MONTHS AFTER 9/11

[candide777]

Actually, it makes sense. bin Laden is using the Pope like a tool, the way he did George Bush. Now, bin Laden is hoping people will turn their attention to and rally around the Pope, so that bin Laden really can turn this into a Holy War. You have to give him some credit, he knows how to play world leaders like a flute. He turns the music on, and they start dancing. The Pope is getting his fifteen minutes now, so you can bet he won''t give up the spotlight, but just try to get more of it. Too bad the rational and sane atheists of the world have to get dragged into this religious BS.

[candide777]

LOL -- what is this? Some sort of twisted Comedy Central movie? Nobody takes the Pope seriously anymore, why would bin Laden?

[smilingez50]

Open the doors to hell. It''s time for a Holy Crusade.
Let''s do the job right this time and bury Islam.

[ourtomorrows]

During the past two decades, computer-assisted charter studies have demolished that contrivance. Scholars have discovered that crusading knights were generally wealthy men with plenty of their own land in Europe. Nevertheless, they willingly gave up everything to undertake the holy mission. Crusading was not cheap. Even wealthy lords could easily impoverish themselves and their families by joining a Crusade. They did so not because they expected material wealth they already had that.

Posted by Gaye5 at 09:31 PM : Mar 20, 2008

I agree in part, but don''t over play your argument. The first wave of crusaders stirred up by Peter the Hermit were among the dregs of European society. As they did in fact pillage their way across Europe, ripping the lead off church roofs and so on, there were many among them who believed they were in fact on a mission to fight the threat of Islam. The second wave of Crusades of the first crusade were the knights and wealthy nobles you speak of. But keep in mind, when they took Jerusalem they slaughtered everyone, Jew, Muslim, Christian, man, woman and child. You are right to point out that the first crusade has been badly misunderstood, but you have to at the same time acknowledge the other aspects.

[ourtomorrows]

Gaye5
I don''t disagee with you. Defending ones home and family necessitates sometimes the use of force, evil can not, regrettably, be defeated with pacifism. Hitler showed us that very clearly. And I don''t disagree with you about the threat posed by radical Islam, we are in a titanic struggle here. My point however, primarily, was that all Christians need to put aside or bury these their hatreds towards each other and in some cases, towards Jews. All sects of Christianity need to unite together and suport each other because we are in a fight to save our civilization. In particular, the attacks by right wing Protestantism on Catholics has got to stop. It does no one any good and only weakens what must be a united Christian front. Accepting Christ as your lord and savior should be enough, how you honor Christ or work his teachings into your life should be secondary at this point in our history. Christ preached above all, tolerance, and we need to remember that as we look at other believers. We need to also remember the lessons of history, when faith dies so to do states, empires and entire peoples. You atheists have never been in a majority for a very good reason, your way of life is not something that is enduring. Like it or not man needs faith, when he does not have it, that is when he truly falls.

[gaye5]

Pope Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom to push back the conquests of Islam at the Council of Clermont in 1095. The response was tremendous. Many thousands of warriors took the vow of the cross and prepared for war. Why did they do it? The answer to that question has been badly misunderstood. In the wake of the Enlightenment, it was usually asserted that Crusaders were merely lacklands and ne%u2019er-do-wells who took advantage of an opportunity to rob and pillage in a faraway land. The Crusaders%u2019 expressed sentiments of piety, self-sacrifice, and love for God were obviously not to be taken seriously. They were only a front for darker designs.

During the past two decades, computer-assisted charter studies have demolished that contrivance. Scholars have discovered that crusading knights were generally wealthy men with plenty of their own land in Europe. Nevertheless, they willingly gave up everything to undertake the holy mission. Crusading was not cheap. Even wealthy lords could easily impoverish themselves and their families by joining a Crusade. They did so not because they expected material wealth they already had that.

[gaye5]

Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.
With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the Christians shortly after Mohammed%u2019s death. They were extremely successful. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt%u2014once the most heavily Christian areas in the world%u2014quickly succumbed. By the eighth century, Muslim armies had conquered all of Christian North Africa and Spain. In the eleventh century, the Seljuk Turks conquered Asia Minor (modern Turkey), which had been Christian since the time of St. Paul. The old Roman Empire, known to modern historians as the Byzantine Empire, was reduced to little more than Greece. In desperation, the emperor in Constantinople sent word to the Christians of western Europe asking them to aid their brothers and sisters in the East.

That is what gave birth to the Crusades. They were not the brainchild of an ambitious pope or rapacious knights but a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslims had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world. At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam.

[gaye5]

We have been taught that the Crusaders were evil and that the popes were also,,,, I am so sick of our pandering to these extremists throughout history,, At some point, Christianity as a faith and a culture had to defend itself or be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.
Many historians had been trying to set the record straight on the Crusades.So what is the truth about the Crusades? Scholars are still working some of that out. But much can already be said with certainty. For starters, the Crusades to the East were in every way defensive wars. They were a direct response to Muslim aggression%u2014an attempt to turn back or defend against Muslim conquests of Christian lands.

Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword. Muslim thought divides the world into two spheres, the Abode of Islam and the Abode of War. Christianity%u2014and for that matter any other non-Muslim religion%u2014has no abode. Christians and Jews can be tolerated within a Muslim state under Muslim rule. But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century,

[gaye5]

ourtomorrows, I have just written on here that many horrors have been done in the name of religion, but we must not blame God for the attrocities that man has done in Gods name as christians are told every explicity to not murder.. Murder is where you plan to kill someone. That does not mean that you should not protect yourself from someone who is intent on murdering you..and yes youa re right we must move on from today, but old hatreds still surface, there will never be peace or not for long.. I feel that we are heading for the last countdown, and the Muslims see themselves as the ones to bring this in..which they see as bringing in their great man..

[ourtomorrows]

How many died at the hands of the Lutherans, how many died at the hands of Calvinists (who saw the bible as the ONLY true authority), how many died at the hands of Anabaptist sects. How many perished at the hands of Islam? There is plenty of blood to go around for everyone, if you look deeply enough into the history of any religion, the blood flows. And those of you who are atheists, your slate is no cleaner. So all of you need to get off of your high horses and your perceived superiority. You are all in the muck with the rest of us. But, the history of our chosen religion or belief system or lack there of does not need to define us today. Put aside these past hatred and stereotypes. Look to the now, if you don''t then all is truly lost.

[ourtomorrows]

If Catholicism and Christianity were the same, then I would not have denounced the Roman CATHOLIC church for the Crusades, the Inquisitions, or any other wicked act they were responsible for in the past.
Posted by TruthWord08 at 05:44 PM : Mar 20, 2008

This is a typical slash against the Catholic Church, lets dig up the Crusades. Yes they were horrible but do you know why the first one was fought? It was fought to regain full Christian access to Jerusalem after the Seljuk Turks had begun to restrict pilgrimages. It was done to try to retake the Holy Land from Islam which had mowed down the Byzantines centuries earlier. Yes the Crusades, all of them were brutal and those who participated in them, many of them, were butchers. But this notion that the Catholic Church set out to murder people left and right is a relic of old Protestant discrimination against Catholicism. Its ignorant and it is wrong.

[prinzowhales]

While threats from beyond the grave are rare, indeed, Osama seems to be by far the most talkative spirit to communicate with the SITE US intel cut out.

Here is a story of real terror...of institutions that abuse and murder children. Here is the story of the Queen''s pervert butler...warnings from Anthony Blunt regarding perversities in the royal household that were ignored.

http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=3137

[ourtomorrows]

Not that this has anything to do with Osama bin Laden. However, all sects of Christianity better get their collective heads out of the sand and wake up. The ONLY thing that was required to be a Christian in the early centuries of Christianity was to believe in Christ as your lord and savior, if you do, you are a Christian period the end no matter what any church or congregation tries to say. More to the point, we are in a war here against radical elements of Islam that would destroy ALL of us, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, whatever. We Christians need to forget our petty doctrinal struggles of centuries past and come together, if we don''t we will loose this war and we will have only ourselves to blame.

[ourtomorrows]

But aren''''t Catholocism and Christianity founded on the same fundamental beliefs? Isn''''t that kind of like Baptists calling Methodists bad?
Posted by genoftt

-If you want to know what a Christian is, read the Gospels. Don''''t rely on what some church or what some "Denomination" says. Just read the Gospels yourself. It''''s that simple.

Posted by TruthWord08 at 05:48 PM : Mar 20, 2008

Catholics are Christians just like all the Protestant sects, the Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Bulgarian Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, and Ethiopian churches. It is a misuse of the term Christian for Catholics to argue they are not Christians but Catholics or for Protestants to say Catholics are not Christians. It is all grossly historically inaccurate. There was only ONE Christian Church for centuries that began to really fracture in the 6th century and after.