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Moved To:
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*Permission is hereby granted for you to change all
humor used in The"E-Mail Newspaper", 'Thought
& Humor' and its subsidiaries related to the institution
of lower learning hereby known as UNC to another
of your choice from the list below:

1) French university students
2) Harvard or U.C.-Berkeley
3) Any accredited high school or middle school
4) Any Loggerheads & Pundits
5) Any and all persnickety individuals or nincompoops
6) Any Chapel Hill, NC Citizen unless same sends an offspring
to NCSU, JSU, MSU, USC, UGA, or FSU.
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A UNC student walks into a bar with a slab
of asphalt under his arm and says:
"A root beer please, and one for the road."








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Misconceptions about the Crusades are all too common. Generally portrayed
as a series of unprovoked holy wars against Islam, they are supposed to
have
been the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance -- a black stain
on
the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western, Christian
civilization in general. Since September 11, variations of this theme
have
been used to explain -- even justify -- Muslim terror against the West.
Former president Bill Clinton himself, in a speech at Georgetown
University,
fingered Muslim anger at the Crusades as the "root cause" of the present
conflict.

But the truth is that the Crusades had nothing to do with colonialism or
unprovoked aggression The Crusades 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, European culture had to defend itself or
be subsumed by Islam. The Crusades were that defense.

Their entire subsequent history is one of Western reaction to Muslim
advances --
they were no more offensive than was the American invasion of Normandy.

• Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed,
the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword.

• With enormous energy, the warriors of Islam struck out against the
Christians shortly after Mohammed's death. Palestine, Syria, and Egypt --
once the most heavily Christian areas in the world -- quickly 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 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.

• The end of the medieval Crusades did not bring an end to Muslim jihad
--
Islamic states like Mamluk Egypt continued to expand in size and power,
and the Ottoman Turks built the largest and most awesome state in Muslim
history.

• Under Suleiman the Magnificent the Turks came within a hair's breadth
of
capturing Vienna, which would have left all of Germany at their mercy. At
that point Crusades were no longer waged to rescue Jerusalem, but Europe
itself.

• It is often asserted that Crusaders were merely lacklands and
ne'er-do-wells who took advantage of an opportunity to rob and pillage in
a
faraway land. Recent scholarship has demolished that contrivance. The
truth
is that the Crusades were notoriously bad for plunder. A few people got
rich, but the vast majority returned with nothing.

• The Ottoman Turks conquered not only their fellow Muslims, thus further
unifying Islam, but also continued to press westward, capturing
Constantinople and plunging deep into Europe itself. By the 15th century,
the Crusades were no longer errands of mercy for a distant people but
desperate attempts of one of the last remnants of Christendom to survive.
Europeans began to ponder the real possibility that Islam would finally
achieve its aim of conquering the entire Christian world.

• In 1529, Suleiman the Magnificent laid siege to Vienna. If not for a
run
of freak rainstorms that delayed his progress and forced him to leave
behind
much of his artillery, it is virtually certain that the Turks would have
taken the city.

• Whether we admire the Crusaders or not, it is a fact that the world we
know today would not exist without their efforts. Without the Crusades,
and from a human standpoint, Christianity might well have followed
Zoroastrianism, another of Islam's rivals, into extinction. Of course God
would have not allowed that. Mt 16:18


From: A Concise History of the Crusades by Thomas F. Madden







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"How to Be Sure You're
a REAL Christian"
http://www.actsweb.org/htbs1.htm
1-888-NEED-HIM (24/7 - free call)

(Not amalgamated with 'Thought & Humor')






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Your very own library

http://bible.crosswalk.com


{Double click on the web address above for additional information:}



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Did you hear about the UNC band member who
locked his keys in the car?
He had to break a window to get the drummer out!




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An invisible man marries an invisible woman.
The kids were nothing to look at either.
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Driving along I-90, just west of Chicago, I passed a sign
posted by the police department: "Report drivers using a
cell phone. Call *99."
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Jim had an awful day fishing on the lake, sitting in the
blazing sun all day without catching a single one. On his
way home, he stopped at the supermarket and ordered four
catfish.

He told the fish salesman, "Pick four large ones out and
throw them at me, will you?"

"Why do you want me to throw them at you?"

"Because I want to tell my wife that I caught them."

"Okay, but I suggest that you take the orange roughy."

"But why?"

"Because your wife came in earlier today and said that if
you came by, I should tell you to get the roughy. She
prefers that for supper tonight."
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