Christianity v Islam

Matt Cooper on 13 December 2009

"Christianity has cheated us out of the harvest of ancient culture; later it cheated us again, out of the harvest of the culture of Islam. The wonderful world of the Moorish culture of Spain, really more closely related to us, more congenial to our senses and tastes than Rome and Greece, was trampled down (I do not say by what kind of feet). Why? Because it owed its origin to noble, to male instincts, because it said Yes to life even with the rare and refined luxuries of Moorish life.

Later the crusaders fought something before which they might more properly have prostrated themselves in the dust—a culture compared to which even our nineteenth century might well feel very poor, very "late." To be sure, they wanted loot; the Orient was rich. One should not be so prejudiced. Crusades—higher piracy, nothing else! The German nobility, Viking nobility at bottom, was in its proper element here: the church knew only too well what it takes to get the German nobility. The German nobility, always the "Swiss Guards" of the church, always in service of all the bad instincts of the church—but well paid. That the church should have used German swords, German blood and courage, to wage its war unto death against everything noble on earth! There are many painful questions at this point. The German nobility is almost missing in the history of higher culture: one guesses the reason—Christianity, alcohol, the two great means of corruption."