OT: OSU

[Gatorhater]

Does it matter? A crazy person committing senseless violence to innocent people is still that regardless of who it is.

Sadly, it is not senseless to the crazy person, it is his religion.

Jon Hay shot a Police Officer in Sanibel just 7 days ago... What was his religion?

Crazy is crazy, doesn't matter how you dress it up.

Some crazy is just crazy, then some crazy is frigging at war with us. Example, back in the 1200's the Mongolians were truly brutal. They came up against the Moslems and learned a whole new meaning of brutality, which they readily adopted. The difference is the Mongolians were mere conquerors and got over it -- you don't see them slaughtering innocent people today as an act of faith. The Moslems seem to have held on to the tradition.

That's not what happened with the Mongols, the Mongols completely destroyed the Middle East when they swept through it, and actually burned the last true (true meaning actually descended from Mohammed) caliph alive and massacred everyone else in the family. No one did brutal like the Mongols, they were on some next level ****.

The Mongols who later occupied the area did eventually convert to Islam, just like the Mongols who occupied Russia converted to Christianity, and the Mongols who occupied China were eventually confucist. Bottom line is it's easier to govern when you are the same religion as the people you are governing, or at least they think you are. Mongols understood that.

With that being said, I do agree with your general point. Religion obviously has something to do with the violence, it's not a coincidence.

Not to defend the Mongols, but the invasions you speak of were actually retaliation for 6 centuries of Arab Moslems brutality though out Persia, central Asia and into China and Mongolia while looting and torturing people into conversion. The assault and conquest of Baghdad was full of methods learned from the Moslems. It should be noted that most of the non-Moslems and their homes were spared the destruction and death that befell all others. It was indeed the Arab Moslems who took the horribly brutal Mongols to the new level.

You are correct that Mongols was open to influence of many religions. Part of the revenge factor came from influences of other religions, which had been victims of Moslems, on the Mongols. That said, neither group was very pleasant.