When I was a little boy both my father and uncle raped me nearly

File: 1464464484249.jpg (83KB, 720x502px) Image search: [Google]

83KB, 720x502px

>>1248642

File: 1464458802867.png (361KB, 540x696px) Image search: [Google]

361KB, 540x696px

>>1248645

File: 1463743041675.jpg (136KB, 817x960px) Image search: [Google]

136KB, 817x960px

>>1248648

File: 1463741579984.jpg (281KB, 748x823px) Image search: [Google]

281KB, 748x823px

>>1248649

File: 1463986782258.jpg (376KB, 700x1030px) Image search: [Google]

376KB, 700x1030px

>>1248652

File: 1463557118545.jpg (21KB, 279x315px) Image search: [Google]

21KB, 279x315px

>>1248656

If you're talking about the Crusades then yeah they were political

>>1248778
Not just the crusades but every war(Mostly Christian or Muslim) that was declared in the name of religion. It seems to me that religion is used as an excuse to go to war and to hide the actual political motives

>>1248642
That went from 100 to 0 fast

Both. But war is always religious even if we don't think it is. Read some Evola.

>“The blood of the heroes is closer to God than the ink of the philosophers and the prayers of the faithful.”

>“In the Islamic tradition a distinction is made between two holy wars, the "greater holy war" (el-jihadul-akbar) and the "lesser holy war" (el-jihadul-ashgar). This distinction originated from a saying (hadith) of the Prophet, who on the way back from a military expedition said: "You have returned from a lesser holy war to a great holy war." The greater holy war is of an inner and spiritual nature; the other is the material war waged externally against an enemy population with the particular intent of bringing "infidel" populations under the rule of "God's Law" (al-Islam). The relationship between the "greater" and "lesser holy war", however, mirrors the relationship between the soul and the body; in order to understand the heroic asceticism or "path of action", it is necessary to understand the situation in which the two paths merge, the "lesser holy war" becoming the means through which a "greater holy war" is carried out, and vice versa: the "little holy war", or the external one, becomes almost a ritual action that expresses and gives witness to the reality of the first. Originally, orthodox Islam conceived of a unitary form of asceticism: that which is connected to the jihad or "holy war".”
― Julius Evola, Metaphysics of War

>>1248778
>>1248782
Literally false

>>1251080
Would you like to give examples or evidence? I'm genuinely curious as to what other people think on the matter.

Also, the question isn't strictly for the crusades, any war is open for viewing

File: delacroix.jpg (58KB, 300x476px) Image search: [Google]

58KB, 300x476px

religion is part of human nature that has been taken advantage of

it is rarely the root reason for war, however if it can be used to motivate plebs then it can be a big part of it

>>1253543
The Crusades attracted common folk and nobles alike, many which sold all their possessions to finance the long journey.
The distance to the Holy Land, its lacks of riches, and the small chance of ever returning doesn't sustain the view that Crusaders were mere greedy plunderers, using religion as a tool to seek riches and powers.

The first leader of the Crusaders, Godfrey of Boullion, who used to be a duka in France, refused the title of King of Jerusalem, saying that he wouldn't wear a crown of gold where Christ wore a crown of thorns. He was addressed by his old ducal title, and as defender of the Holy Sepulchre.
He died in Jerusalem, never returning to Europe.

And many other nobles had similar fates. The Crusader Kingdoms were never safe nor rich, so it's unfair to claim Christians went there to live an easy and luxurious life.

Then again, you can always find people who had less noble intentions, such as the Venetians. They commonly participated in the Crusades, yet were never very interested in the Holy Land.
In one expedition, they tried to have the Crusaders fight Hungarians who were threatning their commerce. Most of the Crusaders refused to stop along the way to fight other Christians.
They were also responsible for the infamous sack of Constantinople.

File: 771a4526ebeffab711b48e2bf73889f4.jpg (25KB, 350x437px) Image search: [Google]

25KB, 350x437px

>>1253569
This is basically how I've thought of it too.

>>1253649
But the First Crusade was started because the Byzantine Emperor, Alexeus Comnenus(I apologie for poor spelling, too lazy to look it up), asked the Pope for a group of Knights and soldiers to help him take bake Byzantine lands lost during Muslim Conquests of Asia Minor. It started political in nature but Religion was used to motivate the people actually doing the fighting.

So I'd say that it was primarily political as that was how it began

>>1253913
Pretty much this, just because the soldiers had religious intentions doesn't mean the war was for entirely religious reasons. They were just another cog in the machine to be used up, as far as those who started the war were concerned

>>1253913
And what political intention were those?
How is defending territory for the sake of being held by people's of the same religion a political goal?
The Pope mentioned in his speech that the Byzantine Christian brother were being attacked, and urged people to take in arms in defense of the faith.
What political reasons did the Pope have to make that request, and what were the political motivations of those who joined?

Went the Crusading armies, mostly composed of peasant led by local preachers, arrived in Anatolia, they immediatly disregarded their original goals.
They attacked the Byzantine's Muslim allies, and went to conquer Jerusalem, an objective entirely unrelated to the Byzantine conflict with Turks.

>>1253935
And who were the people who started the war? The Pope, who told them to defend Christians, and had no power over the First Crusade beyond that?
The Byzantines, who had no control over the Crusaders?
Or was it the common religious preachers, who led the peasantry? Maybe the nobles who went on to fight and die against a distant enemy?

If you claim the Crusade was started and led for mundane reasons, yoh should back your claims, instead of repeating some "Man, it's all about the money, man..." meme.

>>1248642
That's horrible and all, but does that have anything to do with the question?

>>1254394
The religious reasons were the Byzantines reclaiming previously lost land. It wasn't necessarily because of the religion of the people in the conquered lands but the fact that the ERE had strong connection to that land. Even though religion was a part of that connection, it went past that. Those people were Greek, they were Roman citizens and the Emperor believed the land to be rightfully part of the Byzantine Empire.

The Pope also had more reason to get involved in the crusades than just religion although they can be construed as religious. Urban II wanted to use the crusades to try and gain more power for the papacy, he used religion to justify his political espionage but the intentions weren't religious.

>>1249976
What the hell? This quote is literal bullshit.

- From Madden's Concise History of the Crusades:
It was long believed by historians that the crusades were manned by Europe’s castoffs: aristocratic second or third sons with no claim to their father’s lands or title, robber barons, highwaymen, ne’er-do-wells, and greedy monks. In part, this interpretation was an assessment of demographic evidence. Europe’s population soared during the tenth century, which suggested a need for more land. Thus, the crusades were often described as Europe’s first colonial wars, a kind of proto-imperialism visited on the Muslim people. Men with little to lose and everything to gain, it was argued, took the cross merely as a pious pretext to enrich themselves with stolen booty and carve out a new home in a distant land. Historians who lived through Europe’s scramble for empire or the subsequent dissolution of imperialism naturally saw the crusades in that familiar light. In addition, the post-Enlightenment and positivist view of religiosity too often presumed that medieval men and women could not possibly take seriously the pious words they uttered and wrote. For scholars of those schools, religion was not an impetus but a diversion, a ruse for those who spoke of the next world while profiting in this one. Unfortunately, this mistaken view is still dominant in popular works and even in many otherwise fine textbooks.
The advent of computer databases opened up new vistas of research for scholars such as Jonathan Riley-Smith to analyze large numbers of documents relating to the men and women who participated in the crusades. Rather than general impressions, we now have solid evidence regarding those who took up the church’s call and the factors that motivated them. Approximately 150,000 people across Europe responded to Urban II’s summons by donning the cross of the pilgrim. The vast majority of these were poor, and many were women or elderly (or both).

>>1257615
During the course of the First Crusade, approximately 40,000 men marched to the East. Some left early, others late. Many did not make the entire journey. Only a minority of that total were knights; nevertheless, it was the knights and barons who brought with them the armies, so their acceptance of the crusading vow was crucial to the success of the crusade. What is clearest in the documentary record is that the great majority of these knightly crusaders were not spare sons but instead the lords of their estates. It was not those with the least to lose who took up the cross, but rather those with the most. Such men knew well the dangers of the proposed journey of some two thousand miles. A few of them were even familiar with the Turks, having served previously as mercenaries to the Byzantine Empire. The cost of crusading was truly enormous. A knight who planned to bring a few family members (as many did) and an army appropriate to his position and authority would need to assemble funds equal to five or six times his annual income. Few had that sort of money lying around. They were forced to sell freeholds or settle property disputes to their disadvantage to raise the funds. In many cases, they also turned to their relatives, who liquidated their own assets to support the crusade. All of this represented a significant, in many cases dangerous, drain on the resources of a crusading knight and his family. And for what? All knew that a pilgrimage to Palestine was a treacherous undertaking even in the best of times.

>>1257632
The tears that flowed when a crusader left his wife were not solely the result of an expected long absence but also of the strong likelihood that the soldier would never return. Although some hoped for the opportunity for plunder, the pope had decreed that all lands captured were to belong to the “prince” in command at the time. The expectation was that this “prince” would be the Byzantine emperor. In the event, very few crusaders remained in the Holy Land after their vows were fulfilled. The vast majority returned to Europe with neither riches nor land.
To impoverish one’s family for the remote possibility of garnering wealth in Palestine would have been foolish in the extreme. The price was too great and the chances of return too slim. To understand why thousands of knights and their families made such profound sacrifices, one must remember that they were medieval, not modern, people.

3/3

>>1248642
Share some stories from childhood OP, i wanna fap

>>1257615
>>1257632
>>1257643

Let's add

http://www.thearma.org/essays/Crusades.htm#.V1guer0RXqA

To this.

File: hqdefault.jpg (12KB, 480x360px) Image search: [Google]

12KB, 480x360px

>>1257615
>>1257632
>>1257643
>>1257867
While the people my have been religiously motivated, the people who started the crusades were not. The Pope saw it as a chance to strengthen Latin Christianity over Greek and the Byzantine Emperor started the Crusade to gain back lost land. So was it necessarily political because the people were religiously driven? Was it religious since it started because of war and politics? Personally, I think it's political but I have learned a lot of the first Crusade from this so I'm not totally opposed to changing my opinion if the argument is strong enough

>>1258640
Not that Anon, but I think politics did play a role for some, and in at least coordinating with other nations, but I also think it never would of grown in its size and importance with the amount of people involved if not for those who were also teligously motivated. Plus I could see the possibility that some saw it as a two birds with one stone scenario where the relgoius or political aspect was just a bonus reason for going.