9/03/2010 PERMALINK
Nothing but lies from our politicos. Some readers of my blog and other friends have sent me a letter being ciruclated by Newt Gingrich about the Muslim center in New York.

It is not my wish to defend Islam, which is certainly one of the loopiest religions around. What is it, 72 virgins you are suppose to get in heaven if you die in defense of the faith? What a hoot! LOL!

However, I do also seem to vaguely recall something about Newt being a lying scum bag. Didn't he cheat on his wife and do some other reprehensible things that caused him to have to resign his speakership of the House? There were lies and scandal of some sort back then, and he is certainly lying about the history of Cordoba, Spain. Probably not ignorance but deception at work here, since if I recall correctly, Newt was a history professor before running for Congress.

The facts are that after Christianity became the dominant religion in Rome, the Roman empire fell, and Europe plunged into a barbaric Dark Ages. Islam was able to rise into the power vacuum this left. Their advances into various parts of Europe, actually required very little force. This was because Europe had fallen so far that most people were barely able to eek out a hand to mouth existence. They had little strength to resist the Muslim advance and probably little will for it as well. Since when the Muslims arrived, conditions tended to improve dramatically. Hard to resent getting pulled out of the hand-to-mouth barbarity of the Dark Ages, into some semblance of civilization, I imagine.

Despite Newt's assertion in his letter, it is quite true that Cordoba was a shining example to Europe during this era. It was the largest, most civilized and prosperous city in Europe at that time. A place of refinement in a sea of brutality, where both Christian and Jews could live alongside Muslims relatively free of persecution. This while Jews were routinely persecuted in most of the Christian kingdoms of Europe. Documents released from the Vatican archives show that the Catholic Church encouraging their kings to persecute Jews.

As Christian kingdoms became stronger, at the urging of the Vatican, they brutally attacked and destroyed Cordoba. This period also produced the numerous, extremely bloody Christian Crusades to the holy lands. The stated purpose of these Crusades was to take back the holy lands for Christianity. The reality was a little different. The Crusades also afforded the still barbaric and dirt poor Christian kings of Europe a golden opportunity to loot a much richer civilization than their own. Massive quantities of loot were liberated from peaceful and prosperous Muslim cities all along the path to holy land taken by Christian crusaders.

Cordoba was a shining example of religious tolerance, just as the people attempting to build a Muslim center in New York have apparently claimed. Newt's claim to the contrary is a politically inspired lie. But when did the truth ever stop one of our scum bag politicos of either political party from attempting to use people's fears to obtain a few more votes?

Incidentally, in addition to their participation in the Crusades during this era, the Catholic Church in Spain also launched something that came to be called the Spanish Inquisition. This began when two brothers, who's views actually made them the very first Protestants, began teaching in remote villages in Spain that people did not need to go through the Catholic Church's priests to have a relationship with their God. They could instead have a direct relationship with their God.

These teachings threatened the Church's wealth and power, so with the help of the Christian Kings of Spain, the Catholic Church hunted down these two Protestant brothers. And the Church ordered them killed. The Church further ordered that ever man woman and child in the villages where these men had preached, who had heard about their teaching, also should be exterminated. These innocents were murdered by their own Church, merely because they had heard Protestant ideas, which the Pope's men felt might threatened the Church's power and wealth. As had the tolerance and civility that existed in the Muslim city of Cordoba, which the Church had also ordered destroyed.

This is what the Christians Bishops and Kings of that era were like. They were the thugs, not the Muslims. Protestants, Jews and Muslims alike were brutally murdered and suppressed by the Catholic Kings and Bishops of Spain and elsewhere in Europe, on the orders of the Pope of the "one true church." Documents they have released over the last few decades from Vatican archives show this. And the Vatican under Pope John Paul deserves credit for making these documents public. Airing their own dirty linen to that extent was an act of great honesty by Pope John Paul, something the Catholic Church has been short on down through history. Unfortunately, with the passing of John Paul, the church has reverted to its old ways. The current Pope, it now appears, was heavily involved in the despicable efforts to cover up the evil of child abusing priests by merely transferring the offenders to new churches. Turning them lose to destroy the lives of even more innocent young children to spare the church a scandal. Today's Pope, like the popes that ordered the Spanish Inquisition and the destruction of Cordoba, appears to be a man to whom maintaining the wealth and power of his Church is far more important to him than his sense of good and evil.

Sadly, there are people today in all three of the religions that share a common belief in the God of Abraham, that behave with intolerance for each other. And Newt's lies that seek to stir the pot of hatred and intolerance for political advantage are a despicable act of pure evil.

So please friends, forward me no more copies of the lies of Newt Gingrich. He has lost all credibility with me.