Jesuse Christ is my Lord and Savior. Degenerate, Deplorable, Conservative. Founder of the North American chapter of the Save the Goats Foundation #savethegoats
Christian Lands Conquered by Islam Before the First Crusade — A Brief History Lesson
7th Century (after Muhammad’s death in 632):
Arabia — By the 630s, all Christians/Jews expelled or forced to convert.
Levant (Holy Land, Syria, Palestine): Jerusalem (638), Antioch (637), Damascus (635). Heartlands of early Christianity.
Egypt (Alexandria, Copts): Conquered 639–642. Copts reduced to dhimmi status, many forced conversions.
North Africa (Libya → Morocco): Augustine, Tertullian, Cyprian’s homeland. Fell 647–709. Christianity nearly extinguished.
8th Century:
Spain (Visigothic kingdom): Conquered 711–718. Churches turned into mosques (e.g., Córdoba).
Southern France: Muslim armies crossed the Pyrenees, stopped only at the Battle of Tours (732).
9th–10th Centuries:
Sicily & Southern Italy: Sicily conquered 827–902. Italy raided heavily.
Asia Minor (Turkey): Turks invade Byzantine lands. Defeat at Manzikert (1071) cripples Byzantium → leads to Crusades.
How bad was it?
By 1095, Islam had conquered two-thirds of the Christian world.
Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Carthage — all lost.
Christians enslaved, forced to convert, or reduced to second-class dhimmi.
Reality Check:
The Crusades did not start in a vacuum.
They were not unprovoked aggression.
They were a delayed response to 450 years of conquest and forced conversions.
I’m not saying every crusader’s act was good or justified. But without them, the world might well be under Islam today.
We stand on the precipice.
We face the same evil.
Will we defend Christendom? Or surrender in the name of “tolerance”?
Just an FYI, @HP: Most 3D printers are easier and faster to set up than a brand-new HP printer. The absurd number of logins, accounts, registrations, and other completely unnecessary hoops you have to jump through just to PRINT SOMETHING is ridiculous.
You're making your own printers obsolete with this nonsense. It's a printer, not a NASA launch sequence.
Bring back plug-and-play!
The long arc of Christendom's decline in the West: when the church loses confidence in Scripture's authority and clarity, it starts borrowing authority from culture instead. The result is a faith that looks increasingly like the surrounding culture's highest values (inclusion, equity, self-expression) with a thin Christian veneer.
When the church stopped being a counter-cultural force and started trying to stay "relevant" or avoid offense, the void got filled by secular values. Now those values flow back in—reinterpreting Scripture through lenses of equity, inclusion, self-actualization, therapeutic moralism, etc.