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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Does religion cause wars?
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
I don’t want to distract the thread on the meaning of the word religion so I’ve raised this thread. In the “religion” thread, it has been posted that some atheist use the phrase “religion causes wars” and this has reminded me of something that has been bothering me for some time…
What wars were caused by religion?
Seriously, I’m genuinely struggling to think of any. To me all wars are to do with money and power. Religion may be an enabler or an excuse but the underlying cause of wars is money or power.
Even the crusades were about power and power-broking as the Roman Empire in the East needed western help to survive against the Arabic armies. If religion hadn’t existed, this situation could still have developed from the splitting of the Roman Empire.
The wars in Ireland and Scotland were also more about English monarchs establishing their authority over those regions rather than any religious issues.
I think that if religion didn't exist, the wars that have been fought would still have been fought, as they were not basically about religion.
So can anyone give me some examples of wars there were genuinely caused by religion? Where there were no underlying causes related to wealth or power?
[ 07. March 2013, 11:50: Message edited by: deano ]
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"The moral high ground is slowly being bombed to oblivion. " - Supermatelot
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Touchstone
Shipmate
# 3560
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Posted
"Religion has caused so many wars" is a statement that is made far too often by people who really should know better, but it's in danger of becoming received wisdom.
I only know much about wars in the western hemisphere, but major wars over the last couple of centuries include the Napoleonic wars (caused by a megalomaniac's desire to conquer Europe) the American civil war (caused by the desire of the southern states to perpetuate gross human rights abuses), World War 1 (caused by German imperial expansionism) and World War 2 (caused by unfinished business from World War 1)
Our own recent history could include the Suez Crisis, various colonial insurgencies and the Falklands war, which probably all fall into the category of "imperialism's last gasp".
The gulf wars were fought over oil. If Saddam Hussein had been the muslim ruler of Zimbabwe...he would still be ruler of Zimbabwe.
Religion not even a contributory factor in any of them.
Of course this doesn't prove that religion doesn't cause wars - Undoubtedly some crusaders genuinely wanted to win back the Holy Land from the infidel. There were also many who wanted to acquire lands outside Europe because the feudal system meant that, as younger sons, they had no rights to any at home.
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Religion may be an enabler or an excuse but the underlying cause of wars is money or power.
I think this is basically correct. I will say, though, that the people who lead their countries into war probably do seriously believe the religious justifications, in their own minds. Even if the underlying motivation is likely something less esoteric.
I doubt that the Popes who launched the Crusades, for example, were sitting there saying "Well, of course, I'm really an atheist, and I don't really care what Muslims believe, but we need to secure those trade routes in the east[or whatever it was they were trying to do], so I'll make up a bunch of stuff about Muslims being horrible infidels to sell it to my people".
Probably, those guys did sincerely believe that Muslims were horrible infidels, but such beliefs would likely have remained on the back-burner had their not been some pivotal economic interest in launching the crusades.
Posts: 6574 | From: back and forth between bible belts | Registered: Jun 2005
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Touchstone
Shipmate
# 3560
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Posted
"Religion has caused so many wars" is a statement that is made far too often by people who really should know better, but it's in danger of becoming received wisdom.
I only know much about wars in the western hemisphere, but major wars over the last couple of centuries include the Napoleonic wars (caused by a megalomaniac's desire to conquer Europe) the American civil war (caused by the desire of the southern states to perpetuate gross human rights abuses), World War 1 (caused by German imperial expansionism) and World War 2 (caused by unfinished business from World War 1)
Our own recent history could include the Suez Crisis, various colonial insurgencies and the Falklands war, which probably all fall into the category of "imperialism's last gasp".
The gulf wars were fought over oil. If Saddam Hussein had been the muslim ruler of Zimbabwe...he would still be ruler of Zimbabwe.
Religion not even a contributory factor in any of them.
Of course this doesn't prove that religion doesn't cause wars - Undoubtedly some crusaders genuinely wanted to win back the Holy Land from the infidel. There were also many who wanted to acquire lands outside Europe because the feudal system meant that, as younger sons, they had no rights to any at home.
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Posts: 163 | From: Somewhere west of Bristol | Registered: Nov 2002
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
deano: To me all wars are to do with money and power. Religion may be an enabler or an excuse but the underlying cause of wars is money or power.
... or land.
To me, the Israel/Palestinian conflict is a good example. Religion is not the issue here.
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
Touchstone wrote:
quote:
the Napoleonic wars (caused by a megalomaniac's desire to conquer Europe)
But I'll bet you that Napoleon really did believe that he was helping to spread the values of the French Revolution to the world. Seeing himself as the indispensable apostle of those values would be part of the megalomania that you reference.
[ 07. March 2013, 12:38: Message edited by: Stetson ]
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I have the power...Lucifer is lord!
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
deano: I think that if religion didn't exist, the wars that have been fought would still have been fought, as they were not basically about religion.
If religion didn't exist, people would have found another enabler. Everything that distinguishes 'our group' from 'the other group' will do. It doesn't even have to be real.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
Gotta have some kind of "big cause" to fight for tho.
Nationalism is a common one these days.
Religion fit the bill too.
So theoretically yeah, it can cause wars. Provides that extra impetus that impels someone to die for something.
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
Seriously, I’m genuinely struggling to think of any. To me all wars are to do with money and power. Religion may be an enabler or an excuse but the underlying cause of wars is money or power.
You seem to be proceeding from the idea that religion isn't also about money and power. A quick historical survey indicates that this is not at all obvious.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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deano
princess
# 12063
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
Seriously, I’m genuinely struggling to think of any. To me all wars are to do with money and power. Religion may be an enabler or an excuse but the underlying cause of wars is money or power.
You seem to be proceeding from the idea that religion isn't also about money and power. A quick historical survey indicates that this is not at all obvious.
The organisation of religion may well lead to secular power and money grabs. But religion in the abstract doesn’t have those properties. It’s about how people have organised themselves that has led to religion being incorrectly labelled – an that’s the other thread!
But if we mean “The Churches” to cover the whole panoply of how religions are organised by people, then they certainly can be used to grasp for power and money.
I think religion without the man-made organisation imposed on it is NOT responsible for any war.
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
You seem to be proceeding from the idea that religion isn't also about money and power. A quick historical survey indicates that this is not at all obvious.
The organisation of religion may well lead to secular power and money grabs. But religion in the abstract doesn’t have those properties. It’s about how people have organised themselves that has led to religion being incorrectly labelled – an that’s the other thread!
The idea that religion has nothing to say on the subjects of money or power will come as quite a surprise to many very devout people.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
To take your example of the Crusades, a good case could be made that the whole project was made possible by religious teachings. In Western Europe you had an aristocratic power structure based on a warrior caste and a religion that taught that God kind of frowned on people killing each other. The obvious solution to this cognitive dissonance was that it was okay to kill God's enemies, which is why thousands of Frankish knights were willing to travel vast distances to take part in a war between the Seljuks and Byzantines in a way they weren't interested in inserting themselves in the war between the Almoravids and Ghana (roughly contemporary to the First Crusade and actually closer to France). The whole "killing God's enemies" thing also explains why the Franks were willing to expand their war to include the Fatimids, who weren't involved in the war until several thousand heavily armed Franks showed up at Jerusalem.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
Does religion cause wars?
Nope.
However, an honest reflection has to face up to the fact that when religion is co-opted to the war cause it often leads to some of the worst examples of human depravity.
The idea that religion causes wars is necessary to some humanists' world view that their particular flavour of atheism is the answer to all the world's ills. It's sloppy thinking and doesn't stand up to any proper analysis.
AFZ
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Isn't it correct that historical teaching on the Crusades has shifted several times? I was under the impression that for a period, they were seen as commercial, really, that is, as a means of acquiring wealth and property. But later, historians began to look again at the authentically religious dimensions. I'm sure that such revisions go on all the time in most fields of history. This can certainly be seen with regard to the 'dark ages', the inquisitions, medieval science, and so on.
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
To take another example on a smaller (geographic) scale, it could be argued that the religious beliefs of the New England Puritans (we're the last true remnant of God's church left in the world, surrounded by hostile pagans and supernatural forces) led to a lot of the excesses of the Pequot War, which were particularly brutal even by the standards of seventeenth century warfare.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
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IconiumBound
Shipmate
# 754
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Posted
quote:
quote:
Religion may be an enabler or an excuse but the underlying cause of wars is money or power.
I agree but would add territory as an expression of power. It is our evolutionary heritage from the chimps.
And while religion has certainly resulted in massacres and wars, secularism has also done the same.
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Bran Stark
Shipmate
# 15252
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Touchstone:
World War 1 (caused by German imperial expansionism)...
I think "caused by European imperial expansionism and systems of alliances" might be a better way to phrase it.
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bran Stark:
quote:
Originally posted by Touchstone:
World War 1 (caused by German imperial expansionism)...
I think "caused by European imperial expansionism and systems of alliances" might be a better way to phrase it.
Imperial expansionism by European nations other than Germany? Say it ain't so!
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Religion isn't what causes the leaders to decide to go to war, no. But it has been instrumental in deciding how many of their people will go along with them.
To give a recent example, I very much doubt that Osama Bin Laden was himself motivated by religion, but I'm pretty damn sure he'd have found it really pissing hard to get hold of so many people who were willing to fly planes into buildings without using religion to motivate them.
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
To give a recent example, I very much doubt that Osama Bin Laden was himself motivated by religion, . . .
Any particular reason for that doubt? Most of the biographies I've read of the man credit his turning point to outrage about infidels establishing military bases in the Holy Land (the Arabian peninsula) during the Gulf War. That seems a fairly religious motivation to me.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
War is caused by one and only one thing. People. On the other hand religion enables one of the main factors that brings out an army with high morale and has its own nastily unique twist. In order to get the population behind a war you almost always sell it as your side being under attack regardless of the situation on the map. Religion's good at this as it both gives intangibles that have meaning to the hearer and an identity that crosses boundaries (which can often be a good thing). But religion's nasty twist is that it's often easy to sell people they are killing the enemy for the benefit of their friends, but without religion it is very hard to sell most people the idea that they are killing people because they would be better off dead even when you haven't dehumanised them. (Also it's harder to get people to fight to the death or suicide bomb without religion; you need a reward after death and pie in the sky works).
So religion doesn't cause wars. What it does is gives a very powerful tool to the people who want to cause wars.
[ 07. March 2013, 15:14: Message edited by: Justinian ]
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
To give a recent example, I very much doubt that Osama Bin Laden was himself motivated by religion, but I'm pretty damn sure he'd have found it really pissing hard to get hold of so many people who were willing to fly planes into buildings without using religion to motivate them.
The thing is, whilst your logic is flawless, the facts suggest you're still wrong.
I think I probably need to read This Book but studying all suicide attacks between 1980 and 2003, apparently 48-57% were committed by avowed secularists...
The thing is, some take the fact that people do bad things in the name of religion as a reason to think that religion is the problem. Personally I think people are the problem.
AFZ
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think also there has been a huge vacuum in Arab politics, partly because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent collapse of communism all over the world, but also because of the reputation which Arab secularism (often labelled socialist), has acquired. As a friend of mine says, it is now seen as a stinking dog lying in the street, and bringing shame to Arab patriots.
Anyway, into this vacuum have stepped a variety of Islamist groups, some of whom, of course, have been around a long time - for example, they were tortured by Nasser in his jails, and have been tortured and killed by many of the Arab secularists.
So their turn has come, I guess, after the secularists and socialists have failed, and the communists have disappeared. It is a heady blend of patriotism, religious fervour, anti-imperialism, and so on. Who knows what will transpire?
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
To give a recent example, I very much doubt that Osama Bin Laden was himself motivated by religion, . . .
Any particular reason for that doubt? Most of the biographies I've read of the man credit his turning point to outrage about infidels establishing military bases in the Holy Land (the Arabian peninsula) during the Gulf War. That seems a fairly religious motivation to me.
I personally think that OBL exists on the extreme end of the same spectrum that also hosts abortion-clinic bombers, ie. non-state actors whose aggression, while perhaps affecting change in the political sphere, may very well be primarily motivated by religious sentiment.
This differentiates them somewhat from leaders who rise up through the political apparatus of a nation-state, and are thus trained to ultimately keep the interests of said nation-state first and foremost. There aren't too many leaders, even of devoutly Muslim countries, who would seriously declare war against anyone menacing the interests of Sunni Muslims the world over.
Osama may have been outraged by the presence of infidel troops in the Arabian peninsula. By contrast, the Saudi government, devout though they may be, aren't likely to forget who's buttering their bread.
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Crœsos: Most of the biographies I've read of the man credit his turning point to outrage about infidels establishing military bases in the Holy Land (the Arabian peninsula) during the Gulf War. That seems a fairly religious motivation to me.
Partly perhaps. But not wanting foreign military bases in your country also sounds like a secular argument to me.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by alienfromzog:
Personally I think people are the problem.
AFZ
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
quetzalcoatl: I think also there has been a huge vacuum in Arab politics, partly because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the subsequent collapse of communism all over the world, but also because of the reputation which Arab secularism (often labelled socialist), has acquired.
I think that mostly the origin of islamist groups can be traced back to the European occupation (euphemistically called 'Protectorates') of the Middle East after WWI.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
I really struggle to see the Bishop's Wars and the subsequent wars of the 3 kingdoms not having religion as a primary causal factor. Unless you want to separate out "fear of the other" from power and money. It's pretty clear that both Charles I and Oliver Cromwell genuinely believed, and that most of their followers genuinely believed, that they were fighting for the sort of society and church that God favoured.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Crœsos: Most of the biographies I've read of the man credit his turning point to outrage about infidels establishing military bases in the Holy Land (the Arabian peninsula) during the Gulf War. That seems a fairly religious motivation to me.
Partly perhaps. But not wanting foreign military bases in your country also sounds like a secular argument to me.
It's both, which probably gives some of the Islamists a widespread appeal. They can combine patriotism, political opposition to imperialism and neo-colonialism, and religious fervour. The big test for them will be power, as in Egypt. Can they do better than the corrupt secular governments? If they can't, God knows what will happen. You would bet on military rule.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I really struggle to see the Bishop's Wars and the subsequent wars of the 3 kingdoms not having religion as a primary causal factor. Unless you want to separate out "fear of the other" from power and money. It's pretty clear that both Charles I and Oliver Cromwell genuinely believed, and that most of their followers genuinely believed, that they were fighting for the sort of society and church that God favoured.
It is rather easy to frame the Bishop's wars as political struggle. And, whilst we cannot read the mind of dead people, Cromwell's behaviour after taking control certainly suggests he did not hate power.
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
and iys notable that, as welll as his atrocities in catholic ireland, he also had a bitter war agaimst the dutch.
And France and sweden were of the wrong sides of the.thirty year war. In fact even tje crusades were mixed.
Mind your all of this is.drowmed by taiping for (heretical) christians and (confutiousm?)
india and america for the right, christians and atheist
russia and china for the left and atheist.
And hitler for the left, right, atheist, pagan, christian tallies.
SorryFor spelimg on mobile.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I think that we let 'ourselves' (ie. religious people/people of faith) off the hook rather too easily if we deny that religion was an ingredient of the wars and conflicts of the middle-ages and early-modern period. You couldn't separate religion from politics in those days.
The Thirty Years War, the French Wars of Religion (the clue is in the title) and the English Civil Wars (or the Wars of the Three Kingdoms more accurately) all had a very distinct religious element.
The English Civil War was predominantly about religion (and religion allied to power) and you've only got to read some of the journals and writings of the combatants on both sides to appreciate that.
In fact, the only major medieval or early-modern period wars that I can think of that didn't have an explicitly religious element or justification is The Hundred Years War between England and France and The Wars of the Roses. They were purely dynastic - and between people of the same faith.
Yet religion (inevitably) was drawn into the conflict too - hence Joan of Arc being tried an burned as a heretic.
All sides in conflicts in those days claimed that God was on their side.
'It is a strange thing, Mr Ireton,' Cromwell is said to have observed to his son-in-law, 'But every man who wages war believes that God is on his side. I'll warrant that God must often wonder who is on his.'
Cromwell certainly believed that God was on his side. All those 'crowning mercies' and so on. And the chilling, 'God made them as stubble to our swords.'
You even find religion and divine-intervention being cited as late as the American War of Independence and the Anglo-American War of 1812-14. I've even seen a contemporary US TV documentary that seemed to seriously suggest that a divinely appointed hurricane incommoded the British forces after they'd burned the White House ...
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
Does religion cause wars?
That is actually an unanswerable question, unless we define what we mean by 'religion'.
Secondly, even when have defined what we mean, we then need to look at the concept of causation. Causation is not the same as justification.
If, for example, we accept that "belief in the existence of a Supreme Being" is intrinsically part of 'religion', then does this belief cause wars? Well, obviously not, othewise every single person who believed in God could not avoid causing wars, in the same way that rain cannot avoid causing wetness on the ground when it comes into contact with it.
And then we have to ask: so what?
What is the point of the question? Is it to declare that 'religion' (whatever it is) is an unacceptable phenomenon, because some people use it to justify war?
Would we treat politics in the same way? Or economics? Or Darwinism, for that matter (because Darwin's ideas have certainly been appealed to, to justify all manner of abuse)?
Should I start a thread entitled: "Does politics cause wars?" The answer is so obvious that there is no point. But even if the subject was discussed, no one in their right mind would even remotely suggest or insinuate that politics ought to be proscribed in some way, because of its tendency to justify conflict. But this seems to be the subtext to the discussion about the effect of religion (not necessarily here on the Ship, but elsewhere).
As has already been pointed out, people cause wars, and justify them in all sorts of ways.
That's it. Nothing more to say really.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
As has already been pointed out, people cause wars, and justify them in all sorts of ways.
Agreed.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
To take your example of the Crusades, a good case could be made that the whole project was made possible by religious teachings. In Western Europe you had an aristocratic power structure based on a warrior caste and a religion that taught that God kind of frowned on people killing each other. The obvious solution to this cognitive dissonance was that it was okay to kill God's enemies, which is why thousands of Frankish knights were willing to travel vast distances to take part in a war between the Seljuks and Byzantines in a way they weren't interested in inserting themselves in the war between the Almoravids and Ghana (roughly contemporary to the First Crusade and actually closer to France). The whole "killing God's enemies" thing also explains why the Franks were willing to expand their war to include the Fatimids, who weren't involved in the war until several thousand heavily armed Franks showed up at Jerusalem.
The Franks didn't exactly intervene on behalf of the Byzantines. Rather the opposite - see the Fourth Crusade. (It should also be said that it's much easier to ship an army, or trade goods, from France to the Eastern Mediterranean than it is to Ghana. Or Ethiopia - there were no Frankish interventions on behalf of Christian Ethiopia.)
What we might call Frankish culture - the French and the Holy Roman Empire - was highly expansionist, either militarily. That's especially true of the Normans once they'd been assimilated. They weren't shy of expanding militarily into areas that were also Christians - England (1066), and from there into Scotland, Wales and Ireland. English anti-Irish propaganda did paint the Irish as not really Christian, but that was only true if you identified 'Christian' with the Frankish cultural expression thereof. They Spanish kingdoms reexpanded to the south-west. (The medieval Christian Spanish kingdoms were surprisingly tolerant of the Muslim and Jewish populations if you compare them to what the unified kingdom under Ferdinand and Isabella did.) And the culture also spread eastwards, in some areas through military means, and in others through more peaceful population movements, and in others through adoption by indigenous rulers (Hungary, as also Scotland).
Certainly part of the Frankish cultural identity was religious. But it would be problematic to isolate religion as a specific factor that made a distinct contribution.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
I suppose then the extension of the OP question is do religious people cause more wars, proportionately than secularists. And how much of a unique motivation is religion; in that if the religious motive is removed, it can't be replaced by some other rational motivating factor.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
On the other hand religion enables one of the main factors that brings out an army with high morale and has its own nastily unique twist.
That's equally true of beliefs in liberty, equality, and fraternity, for example, or democracy. You could easily make a case from history that those are just as useful to expansionist powers as anything religious.(*)
In fact, the belief that religion causes war or religion causes violence seems to be an excellent motivator of violence if you can paint your enemies as more religious than you are. (See anti-Islamic rhetoric from Hitchens, Scruton, etc etc.)
(*) As alienfromzog points out, in practice beliefs in the afterlife don't seem effective in enabling violence.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Crœsos
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# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The obvious solution to this cognitive dissonance was that it was okay to kill God's enemies, which is why thousands of Frankish knights were willing to travel vast distances to take part in a war between the Seljuks and Byzantines in a way they weren't interested in inserting themselves in the war between the Almoravids and Ghana (roughly contemporary to the First Crusade and actually closer to France).
It should also be said that it's much easier to ship an army, or trade goods, from France to the Eastern Mediterranean than it is to Ghana. Or Ethiopia - there were no Frankish interventions on behalf of Christian Ethiopia.
But Almoravid territory was right on the other side of the Mediterranean, just south of Spain. Much easier for the Franks to reach than anything controlled by the Seljuks.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
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rolyn
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# 16840
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Posted
It's debatable as to whether religion is ever the singular cause of war , even though history is stacked with damning evidence to the contrary.
It is though fair to say that religion is incapable of preventing war.
The word religion has come under much scrutiny here but what about the definition of war ?
ISTM war is the organised use of violence to achieve an end . So what is going to cause this other than the human desire for betterment ?
If human betterment can be advanced for all without the use of violence then this itself seems like a religious ideology . A circular argument by the looks.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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lilBuddha
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# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
The obvious solution to this cognitive dissonance was that it was okay to kill God's enemies, which is why thousands of Frankish knights were willing to travel vast distances to take part in a war between the Seljuks and Byzantines in a way they weren't interested in inserting themselves in the war between the Almoravids and Ghana (roughly contemporary to the First Crusade and actually closer to France).
It should also be said that it's much easier to ship an army, or trade goods, from France to the Eastern Mediterranean than it is to Ghana. Or Ethiopia - there were no Frankish interventions on behalf of Christian Ethiopia.
But Almoravid territory was right on the other side of the Mediterranean, just south of Spain. Much easier for the Franks to reach than anything controlled by the Seljuks.
The answer is money.
And that them down there in Africa is nasty dark people fighting nasty darker people. And the nasty darker people were the Christians.
Religion was the excuse, and may have indeed motivated some of the participants, but power was the reason.
Ideology is often used as an excuse, but it is not difficult to find the true motives. Example? Why go to war to "help" the poor people in Iraq, but not those in Rwanda? Or Darfur, or....
An aside: I would have to look at ship technology of the time, currents and wind; but in sailing, the shortest distance isn't always the easiest route. Or quickest.
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Hallellou, hallellou
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Horseman Bree
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# 5290
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Posted
ISTM that it is difficult to see the Wars of the Reformetion, particularly the Thiry Years' War, as not having SOME connection to religion, compounded by issues of taxation, power and landgrab.
How about war against the Cathars, where wegot the memorable line about "Kill them all. God will know his own" said by a Bishop leading an army.
And what besides religion, esp. the deep distaste for religionists who are close to but not exactly the same as you, would explain the desire of the Popes to eliminate the Byzantine Empire?
Then there is the case of Northern Ireland and the Troubles, which clearly has a significant religious base, or else Ian Paisley wouldn't have a platform.
One could also discuss the various wars of the Balkans, esp. Yugoslavia which make even less sense if religion is factored out.
While religion wasn't necessarily the big deal in hitler's war, you can't say that the Holocaust, which was a civil war against a specific religion, didn't have a religious component. Many of the pogroms and removals of the earlier eras were Christian vs. Christ-killers, as well.
The key point that the atheists pick up is that the religionists are NO LESS warlike than anyone else. Seems to be a comon complaint against Christians of all times: they aren't much better, on average, than the other believers.
So why bother with religion, if it doesn't reduce the problem?
[ 09. March 2013, 15:27: Message edited by: Horseman Bree ]
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
Horseman Bree, I believe that wars that fight over religious issues are always primarily about power - who has it, how it is used and who wants it.
There was, believe me, precious little religion in the Northern Irish troubles, unless one's god was the armalite or the council chamber. What that was about was the abuse of power historically, and the question of identity - often inaccurately premised on half-truths, even those with religious assocations. That fundamentalist Protestants didn't want Roman Catholics to share administrative power of the Province was certainly based on a bigoted view of the RCC. A nasty emotive aggravator. But if anything that's false religion. And ultimately, as ever, was about power, as in not letting go of it to 'the enemy'.
And what defines 'the enemy'? NI's problems were/are about identity. Though I grant you that religion was fed into that, by unscrupulous power-mongers who knew how useful it would be, for their own ends. I know some of those people will truly believe their own religious rhetoric in justifying their position. But I think that in the case of NI, with plantation, appropriation of land, suppression of the indigenous population etc this would've happened even if Ireland had shared the same majority religion of their conqueror. Difference in religion was a big and useful exacerbating factor; one more excuse to add to the many to take up 'stewardship'. But I doubt if the English approach to annexing Ireland would have varied that much, had Ireland moved in step with the Reformation and beyond.
Much of the European and English Reformation violence - on all sides - was also undoubtedly about how to hang on to the hearts and tithes of the ordinary people. IOW, power. The Pope had too much, the princes not enough, and so on. Now, here the question includes things like the power to excommunicate, to consign to hell, the power to absolve or withhold absolution etc. But I really think it was the power to rule states, manage wealth, interfere with governments, monarchs and make international and politically important appointments that finally unsheathed the sword.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Yes, good stuff on Ireland. This has clearly been a nationalist struggle for independence from a colonial power. Religion has been a factor, but not the main one. As a friend of mine says, the loyalists are not marching against transubstantiation!
And in fact, the first invasions of Ireland happened long before the Reformation, and any Republican will cite to you the 800 years of foreign rule! Remember Strongbow.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
But Almoravid territory was right on the other side of the Mediterranean, just south of Spain. Much easier for the Franks to reach than anything controlled by the Seljuks.
The answer is money.
And that them down there in Africa is nasty dark people fighting nasty darker people. And the nasty darker people were the Christians.
Religion was the excuse, and may have indeed motivated some of the participants, but power was the reason.
I think it's difficult to explain the exact war aims of the First Crusade without mentioning the fact that Jerusalem is the Holy City of Christianity.
The question isn't whether religious considerations played a part in the First Crusade. The question is whether the religious considerations resulted in violence that wouldn't have happened somewhere else if Western Europe had been pagan or secular.
Incidentally, I believe that in so far as medieval Western Europe had a concept of race, it was based around language and culture, rather than around skin colour and physiognomy. (There are survivals of this in English attitudes to the Irish until quite recently.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
ISTM that it is difficult to see the Wars of the Reformetion, particularly the Thiry Years' War, as not having SOME connection to religion, compounded by issues of taxation, power and landgrab.
How about war against the Cathars, where wegot the memorable line about "Kill them all. God will know his own" said by a Bishop leading an army.
And what besides religion, esp. the deep distaste for religionists who are close to but not exactly the same as you, would explain the desire of the Popes to eliminate the Byzantine Empire?
I don't think any of these are that simple. For example, the Catholic French intervened on the Protestant side during the Thirty Years War. Religious questions were getting mixed up with state building.
I don't think any Pope desired to eliminate the Byzantine Empire. That plan was entirely the work of the Venetians. Even after it had happened, the Pope had mixed feelings about it. ('By that which we appear to have profited up to now we are impoverished, and by that which we believed above else we were made greater we are reduced.')
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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rolyn
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# 16840
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Posted
ISTM me that in the Centuries that Europe has been dominated by Christian doctrine it has also been dogged by warfare.
Now this may be a co-incidence . Religious fervour does though seem to play a part in motivating people to kill one another. I wish it were otherwise.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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roybart
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# 17357
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Posted
I can't say that I agree with the blanket statement, "Religion causes war." But there have been many cases over the centuries in which "religious sectarianism" -- total self-identification with one version of religious faith, and the belief that "our" religion cannot survive unless it humiliates or wipes out "their" religion -- has played a part in starting wars and increasing the ferocity and intransigence of those who fight.
As I read the posts in this thread, I found myself thinking of Wilfred Owen, and his reference to "The old lie, Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori." Owen wasn't referring specifically to religion, but it's impossible not to see religion as playing a major supporting role in such matters.
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"The consolations of the imaginary are not imaginary consolations."
-- Roger Scruton
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
Been reading a book sort of on this subject concerning Christian Muslim relations along the 10 degrees north latitudinal line. Looking at Sudan, there are all kinds of reasons for the fight. Lack of arable land, cultural gaps, unequal distribution of oil, state corruption...dear Lord it goes on and on and on and on...
The genocides aren't merely because Christians and Muslims are trying to live in the same country. But it becomes a way to channel a metric ton of unrest and desperation into directed violence.
It also made it easier for black folks to organize in the American south.
Religion can facilitate the organized mobilization of people. It can fill in gaps that the civil administration isn't filling. It can give people a reason to hope. It can also give people a reason to feel superior and justified in the complete absence of external justification.
I think, even with the Crusades, the fixings for a large conflict were there from the beginning. "Religious wars" are often about a host of other issues. But religious organizations as abstract thought clusters or as institutions have a way of simplifying them and packaging them for general consumption.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rolyn:
ISTM me that in the Centuries that Europe has been dominated by Christian doctrine it has also been dogged by warfare.
Now this may be a co-incidence . Religious fervour does though seem to play a part in motivating people to kill one another. I wish it were otherwise.
And what of pre-Christian Europe? Are you into the Pax Romana model?
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
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Stetson
Shipmate
# 9597
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, good stuff on Ireland. This has clearly been a nationalist struggle for independence from a colonial power. Religion has been a factor, but not the main one. As a friend of mine says, the loyalists are not marching against transubstantiation!
So, when Ian Paisley went to the Pope's speech at the European Parliament and held up a sign saying "John Paul II Antichrist", it was all just a metaphor for colonial conflicts?
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