"Terrorist" is a silly term really.

Back in the old days.. we just called them our ENEMIES.

How stupid to try to assign a moral superiority to 'our' military adventures, and an inferior one to those opposed to us.

One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. We all know that cliche. So, the appropriate language is 'us' and 'our enemies'.

Given that pretty much every centimeter of populated earth is land which 'used to belong' to someone else, who had it taken from them, its stretching the brain a bit to try to identify 'Mr Squeaky Clean'.

Kev Donnelly said:

"...it is not a good time to be a Christian. Secular humanism is in the ascendant, evidenced by the European Union constitution's refusal to mention Christianity in its preamble, and "European man has convinced himself that in order to be modern and free, he must be radically secular".

I disagree, I don't think there has been a better time to be one of 'Christs'. We should be painfully aware that most of the attacks on the 'Church' raised by various posters, are based on Post Constantine events.

I highly recommend that all of us peruse the book of Acts, see just how life was for the early and generally pure church. It is like that today, but not so much in advanced western nations. But goto Africa, to China, Thailand.. Malaysia.. Singapore woweeeee....

Singapore alone, I still recall going to the East coast parkway with a small house church group.. no matter which way you turned.. 360 deg.. you could not miss the presense of a Christian group, singing, fellowshipping.. praying..
In HongKong recently, of 400 attending an evangelistic meeting, 100 went to give their lives to Jesus !

Will THIS....be our epitath in the West ?..........

21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools [FromRomans1]

Kev has a good point as usual, we need a Crusade on the Idiots who set up the education curriculum, selective fairy tales in Leftist attitude is what is taught and in print, real unethical and criminal and just plain stupid.

Strewth, Strewth you are amazing!
Selective diatribe again? I will get my time displacement software down pat; I will send you back to find out for your self.
It would be no surprise that Looting was the main game of those times, it would be poignant to note that Looters are on the come back, they just use psychobabble to confuse you these days, not as messy as it was back then. ( At the moment) Witch doctors and Moocher Ideology followed by Atillas. "Not Good"

I think a bhudda would appreciate the irony: two prophets spawn two religions which fit their beliefs, then the religious spawn two prophets which fit theirs.

I just love the way the messiah's words on compassion and forgiveness are rolled out sanctimoniously, then qualified with "but that only applies to people who are just like me".

Boaz and I must think alike as I was reading the OLO comments above I thought about the Word of God The Bible which has to direct and run our lives accordingly in the New Testament church. Read the book of Acts and that is how the church and Christians called The Way should conduct their lives daily even today.
But for the flesh of man we had Crusades and hate towards others,and that all started after The Catholic Church came into existence in 313AD .
Constantine declared that Rome and all peoples wouuld become Catholics by anyway possible.

All Christians are supposed to live by The Word of God not by man made ideologies and ways.
The Holy Spirit is our guide and comforter and He never cotradicts God's Word.

Secular humanistic beliefs that are promoted by media and governments have almost destroyed western living.
Europe and Middle East will all go fully secular as the anti christ and new world order governments,con the world into thinking their way .
Read the Book of Revelations in The New Testament Bible and it shows Europe going fully secular soon and try to control the world by secular humanism from there but it will fail.
Australia has never been multicultural when I was a kid in the 40's we never had it only a few refugess from a few nations .
Multi culture has always caused terrble trouble and expense for all who try it .Look at the UK and France right now.

Just get this, that religion is NOT Christianity,it is relationship with Christ our bridegroom who is Love.

Why are we trying to justify two evils as equivalent or not. Let us forgive the past and deal with the present. Do we still have Crusaders and Terrorists? If we do - then us writing and arguing about an ancient past is not sufficient. We must establish a moral right and support that position if we are to cooperate as a global society.

Example: That Australia endeavours to support a democratic system in the majority of Shiite Muslim Iraq does not mean they cry, "Death to Sunni". However it is the Sunni who are on a mission to eradicate democracy and re-state their control. Australia would prefer that they both cooperate in a civilized society, we have no agenda to destroy Sunni if they seek peacful cooperation with the Shiite. That the Sunni terrorists find themselves in the sights of coalition forces, can hardly be blamed entirely on the coalition forces holding the guns.

There is a moral principle at play here. Though we would prefer they both cease from killing each other. If we believe in equality and sharing in a democratic system over a totalitarian dictatorship then we have a moral principle to support.

Boaz, dobboman, et al.
I agree with you up to a point. The crusades, the inquisition, the witchtrials & so on were not examples of people following the Christ. However they were examples of christians doing these terrible things, in the belief that they were following God's will. The christians of those times saw themselves as devout followers of the word of God.

The fact is that christianity & its interpretation of scripture has changed many, many times over the centuries. Read the works of early christians, or those of the middle ages, or of the 17th, or 18th century. They sound odd to modern christian ears, yet they saw themselves as christians following christ. You may say that they were deluded but they would have replied "How can that be? We base our lives on the word of God!" But their interpretation would have allowed horrendous things.

So please, when you declare "I follow Christ" remember that these people would have said the same! How do you know that you too are not forsaking the example of Christ to follow your own interpretation of scripture as they did? You may well reply "I'm not just following my own interpretation of scripture. I follow the word of God & the life of Christ. But those christians from preceding centuries would have said the same. Do you see what concerns me?