So how long will Ben last this time?

[-Jrabbit]

I love Kid's new persona as a religious scholar.

Just a couple weeks ago, he opened the Koran for the first time, yet already he can state the meaning of its contents with great authority. Very impressive.

[Kidlicious]

I love Kid's new persona as a religious scholar.

Just a couple weeks ago, he opened the Koran for the first time, yet already he can state the meaning of its contents with great authority. Very impressive.

Welcome. You know, it's actually the duty of Muslims to disobey non-Muslim rulers. Now you know.

[ricketyclik]

I think I sense a conversion coming on...

[Ben Kenobi]

So when your chosen Pope Innocent III damns the rape and murder you're trying to justify, you just dump him and run?

I'm still waiting for those who believe in 'human rights' to give a damn about Catholics.

You're trying to justify the Sack of Constantinople.

All I said is that the death of 80k Catholics in Constantinople amounted to a provocation and a casus belli to the entire Catholic world at the time. If Byzantium wants to avoid being invaded by all the Catholic powers, perhaps they should refrain from ethnic cleansing. This isn't a high bar.

So of course people are going to point out that the Sack of Constantinople was horrific, and that you're trying to justify mass rape and murder.

Yes, it was horrific. I've never denied that. So was the massacre of 80k Catholics 20 years prior. Even so, the Catholic powers refrained from exercising their Casus Belli. The Fourth Crusade was a disaster, but it was not the fault of the Latin powers. Alexios IV brought about the ruin of the empire.

If you or someone else were to try to justify the rape and murder of Catholics, they'd get the same treatment.

I'm still waiting for anyone to state that the slaughter of 80k Catholics was wrong.

[ricketyclik]

C'mon Ben, get real. They were Catholics.

[Ben Kenobi]

I am unaware of any part of the NT that speaks favorably of Christians adhering to the Law, except that one verse which people love to dredge up to ostensibly embarrass Christians.

Pretty much the theme of Hebrews:

“Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the wilderness,

where your ancestors tested and tried me,
though for forty years they saw what I did.

That is why I was angry with that generation;
I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray,
and they have not known my ways.’

So I declared on oath in my anger,

‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”
See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. 14 We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.

Seems pretty clear to me. Why would the example of the Israelites in the desert excluded from salvation be relevant if Christians were not expected to respect the Law of God?

[Ben Kenobi]

C'mon Ben, get real. They were Catholics.

What was I thinking?!

[Ben Kenobi]

No. The Bible does not clearly give the Pope that authority. Show me that in the Bible.

I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

Matthew 16:19

[Aeson]

All I said is that the death of 80k Catholics in Constantinople amounted to a provocation and a casus belli to the entire Catholic world at the time. If Byzantium wants to avoid being invaded by all the Catholic powers, perhaps they should refrain from ethnic cleansing. This isn't a high bar.

Yes, it was horrific. I've never denied that.

Let's look at what you actually said:

If we want to get into Papal judgment, Innocent III refused to give his blessing to a Crusade against the Byzantine Empire in response to the slaughter of the Catholics. Not because such was not justified ...

It is easy with the gaze of the 21st century to condemn the actions of 12th century Catholics. Personally, I would rather quote Innocent III who was there. But that doesn't serve your narrative that the culpability was on the Catholics who had a rather restrained response.

Deriding condemnation of mass rape and genocide while claiming it was "justified" and a "refrained response" ...

It's good to see you have finally run away from such moronic statements and can finally admit that the Sack of Constantinople was horrific and evil.

Now you just need to drop your stupid strawman. No one is claiming the massacre of Catholics isn't horrific and evil, we all know it is. You were the only one trying to paint mass rape and murder as "justified" and a "refrained response".

I'm still waiting for anyone to state that the slaughter of 80k Catholics was wrong.

I'm still waiting for you to say you aren't gay for Hitler. Why is it so hard for you to not be gay for Hitler? YOU MUST LUST FOR HITLER UP YOUR ASS.[/ridiculouslystupidbenlogic]

[Ben Kenobi]

Deriding condemnation of mass rape and genocide while claiming it was "justified" and a "refrained response" ...

It was restrained. Where did the Pope issue a crusade for Byzantium? Where did the Hohenstaufens launch an invasion of the Empire? They could have, they did not.

Ironically, the 4th Crusade would never have been able to do much without the assistance of Alexios IV. The Crusaders had insufficient forces to breach the walls. They were brought in by Alexios IV in his coup attempt. It was only after they were already inside the city that the sack happened.

Now you just need to drop your stupid strawman. No one is claiming the massacre of Catholics isn't horrific and evil, we all know it is. You were the only one trying to paint mass rape and murder as "justified" and a "refrained response".

I never asserted that 'no one believed that the massacre of Catholics wasn't horrific and evil, I simply stated that I waited for someone to condemn the massacre. Those are two different things.

[Kidlicious]

Matthew 16:19

That did not give Peter any authority to lord over people, declare holy wars etc... There's nothing in that verse that says what you are saying that it says. Peter had the authority of an apostle, and he still does, just like the other apostles.

[Aeson]

I see Ben once again didn't say he wasn't gay for Hitler.

[kentonio]

It was restrained. Where did the Pope issue a crusade for Byzantium? Where did the Hohenstaufens launch an invasion of the Empire? They could have, they did not.

Why would they? The ruler who allowed (bear in mind it was a spontaneous massacre that Andronikos I Komnenos allowed to continue, rather than actually organized and was a result of the previous ruler allowing the Latins to control much of the power in the city) was actually attacked by an army of the Norman Sicilians and was later tortured in the street for 3 days before being executed by Latin soldiers.

It's highly predictable of you to try and paint the massacre of Latins as some kind of Greek plot you can use as justification to defend Catholicism again, but it doesn't actually fit into the reality. The Catholic world was so furious incidentally, that King Louis VII of France proceeded to marry one of his daughters to Andronikos.

Ironically, the 4th Crusade would never have been able to do much without the assistance of Alexios IV. The Crusaders had insufficient forces to breach the walls. They were brought in by Alexios IV in his coup attempt. It was only after they were already inside the city that the sack happened.

What the actual fuck are you talking about? You are literally the worst 'historian' I've ever seen.

Siege

By the end of March, the combined Crusader armies were besieging Constantinople as Emperor Alexios V began to strengthen the city's defences while conducting more active operations outside the city. By the first week of April, the Crusaders had begun their siege from their encampment in the town of Galata across the Golden Horn from Constantinople.[8]

On 9 April 1204, the Crusader and Venetian forces began an assault on the Golden Horn fortifications by crossing the waterway to the northwest wall of the city, but, because of bad weather, the assault forces were driven back when the troops that landed came under heavy archery fire in open ground between Constantinople's fortifications and the shore.

Capture of the city

On 12 April 1204 weather conditions finally favoured the Crusaders as the weather cleared and a second assault on the city was ordered. A strong north wind aided the Venetian ships near the Golden Horn to come close to the city wall, which enabled the attackers to seize some of the towers along the wall. After a short battle approximately 70 Crusaders managed to enter the city. Some Crusaders were eventually able to knock holes in the walls small enough for a few knights at a time to crawl through; the Venetians were also successful at scaling the walls from the sea, although there was extremely bloody fighting with the Varangians. The Crusaders captured the Blachernae section of the city in the northwest and used it as a base to attack the rest of the city, but while attempting to defend themselves with a wall of fire they ended up burning down even more of the city. Emperor Alexios V fled from the city that night through the Polyandriou (Rhegium) Gate and escaped into the countryside to the west.

[Bereta_Eder]

Byzantium managed to last for 1.000 years making it the longest standing empire in europe ever, because it combined the military expertise of greeks/romans/arabs and also inherited a mixture of greek and roman law.

The main source of its wealth were regions like syria and the middle east. Its military might primarely came from asia minor and the vast open fields were war horses and the suchs were groomed and trained.

There were factors that led to its decline. The foremost was its rigidity that got worse as years went by (its weakly adversary "rome" had fallen far before), the other was the loss of the vast horse training plains of asia minor and of course the crusades of the catholics which acted as perfect allies to the muslims.

As said, muslims were far more civilized than catholics and the latter always had a knack of going against christianity probably because they hate the word of god.

[kentonio]

Re-establishing the Roman Empire starting as Byzantium is the best way to play Europa Universalis. <3