Thread: Does religion cause wars? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by deano (# 12063) on :
 
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 ]
 
Posted by Touchstone (# 3560) on :
 
"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.
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Touchstone (# 3560) on :
 
"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.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
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 ]
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by deano (# 12063) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by alienfromzog (# 5327) on :
 
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
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by IconiumBound (# 754) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Bran Stark (# 15252) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
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!
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :
 
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 ]
 
Posted by alienfromzog (# 5327) on :
 
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
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
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?
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by alienfromzog:
Personally I think people are the problem.

AFZ
bing! bing! bing! bing! We have a winnah!
 
Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
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 ...
 
Posted by EtymologicalEvangelical (# 15091) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

As has already been pointed out, people cause wars, and justify them in all sorts of ways.
Agreed.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :
 
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 ]
 
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
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.)
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
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.')
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by roybart (# 17357) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :
 
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.
 
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :
 
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?
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
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?
 
Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
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.
I believe the question was "Does religion cause wars?" not "Does religion in the abstract without any man-made organization cause wars?"
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
The failure of true religion in domesticated Christianity is completely responsible for Eurocentric war for 1700 years.
 
Posted by IconiumBound (# 754) on :
 
War has and will remain the way to get power; money or land. The only thing that has changed in the Middle East is that the war is now for what is UNDER the land, oil.
 
Posted by blackbeard (# 10848) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
The failure of true religion in domesticated Christianity is completely responsible for Eurocentric war for 1700 years.
Well, quite (for many Eurocentric wars anyway, not convinced one can say "all").

But there's a difference between "caused" and "failed to prevent". The OP was concerned with "cause".

But whichever way you look at it, it's a dismal record.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
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?
Something of a distortion there, I think! I think the drive for Irish independence was primarily nationalistic, and anti-British, and only secondarily religious. Correspondingly, N. Ireland became a kind of rump for pro-British people, many of them descended from the original Ulster plantation. To portray this as primarily a religious conflict is historically illiterate.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
blackbeard. [Smile] (my sop to being inclusive, non-hostile, HAH!) please name an exception. And failure to prevent is fully causal. And it's WORSE than failure to prevent. Christianity suborned Rome which repaid the compliment. Domitian lost and Constantine won.
 
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :
 
It sure seems that we've arrived at a "no true scotsman" sort of agreement in this thread. By any objective standard, religion has been the rationale for a depressingly large number of depressingly large wars. While some leaders may have used religion to further their non-religious purposes (a notion that assumes facts not in evidence, of course), it is hard to justify the notion that the great mass of people doing the fighting weren't motivated by religious concerns.

Further, ISTM that insisting that the leaders are a different kind of being than the rest of the people is hard to justify. I would suggest, for example, that the Spanish conquest of the new world was motivated from the top by the desire to save souls -- undoubtedly not to the exclusion of all other motives, but what in humanity is based on only one motivation?

--Tom Clune

[ 10. March 2013, 14:33: Message edited by: tclune ]
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
To portray this as primarily a religious conflict is historically illiterate.
But ignoring the religious dimension is equally blinkered.

It seems to me that in many parts of the world the issues that people were fighting over 400 years ago have by now lost most of their power to inflame and motivate us. What was of political concern is now only of historical interest.

The role of religion in N Ireland has been to keep the fires of hatred burning. To prevent large-scale intermarriage between the two groups, to educate the children separately, to maximise identification with the religious sub-group rather than the wider society. Religion on both sides has been content to function as the badge of tribal identity rather than lifting men's hearts to universals.

And this from a belief-system that is supposedly concerned with forgiveness !

EE raised the "so what" question. And it seems to me that the moral is not (as the atheists might have it) that religion should be shunned by all thinking people. But rather that anyone who thinks that what has happened in N Ireland is a Bad Thing should be seeking to reform those particular tendencies in their own belief-community.

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
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?
Something of a distortion there, I think! I think the drive for Irish independence was primarily nationalistic, and anti-British, and only secondarily religious. Correspondingly, N. Ireland became a kind of rump for pro-British people, many of them descended from the original Ulster plantation. To portray this as primarily a religious conflict is historically illiterate.
So then, Paisley's sign WAS just a metaphor for some political point? Or perhaps Paisley himself is just a fringe character, with no following outside of his own little church?
 
Posted by blackbeard (# 10848) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
blackbeard. [Smile] (my sop to being inclusive, non-hostile, HAH!) please name an exception. And failure to prevent is fully causal. And it's WORSE than failure to prevent. Christianity suborned Rome which repaid the compliment. Domitian lost and Constantine won.
The obvious exceptions are any war in which not all the parties are even nominally Christian. Plenty of those, lots during the Dark Ages and again during the blood-soaked 20th century. Maybe one should include France after their Revolution. A case could be made that, in some instances at least, armed resistance is the least bad of the available options given the likely consequences of acquiescence to (say) Germany in the late 1930s.
The presence of some Christains in the aggressive counties does not mean that they have the political power to influence the policies of their (in practice at least, distinctly not Christian) government.
(Of course, one could at this stage advance the idea that all Christians ought to be Pacifists in the strict sense. Not everyone would agree. Anyway this is a Tangent.)

"Failure to prevent is fully causal" - one of those topics which could have a never-ending discussion; depends on "exactly what you mean by ...". However, the OP uses, so far as I can see, "cause" in a sense which does not extend as far as "fail to prevent". I understand that you may see it differently.

Constantine. Ah yes. Indeed. AFAICS primarily soldier and politician, who saw Christianity as the last hope for holding his empire together. Others may disagree and view him in a more kindly light. Anyway, another Tangent.
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
tclune wrote:

quote:
Further, ISTM that insisting that the leaders are a different kind of being than the rest of the people is hard to justify. I would suggest, for example, that the Spanish conquest of the new world was motivated from the top by the desire to save souls -- undoubtedly not to the exclusion of all other motives, but what in humanity is based on only one motivation?

I think it's kind of a chicken-and-egg question, or whatever metaphor you would use for two things occuring simultaneously and it being impossible to separate the strands of causality.

An interesting test case, though, would be if some king during the Age Of Exploration had gotten a report back from an inhabited island saying: "There is absolutely no reason for us to colonize that place, and in fact doing so would irreparably harm our empire. All the other empires agree with this assessment, no one is going there, there's no scramble, so unless you want to preside over the collapse of our empire, I urgently recommend never going back".

Would the king say: "Well, sorry, but we have an obligation to spread the gospel to those who would otherwise be damned"? Or would he just say "Okay, screw it, let God take care of their salvation"?

[ 10. March 2013, 15:58: Message edited by: Stetson ]
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
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?
Something of a distortion there, I think! I think the drive for Irish independence was primarily nationalistic, and anti-British, and only secondarily religious. Correspondingly, N. Ireland became a kind of rump for pro-British people, many of them descended from the original Ulster plantation. To portray this as primarily a religious conflict is historically illiterate.
So then, Paisley's sign WAS just a metaphor for some political point? Or perhaps Paisley himself is just a fringe character, with no following outside of his own little church?
So are you saying that the Catholic/Protestant conflict has been the prime driving force in Irish politics, or the Irish/British conflict?

I think some anti-theists have put that forward to illustrate the pernicious effects of religion. However, I would like to see how they (or you) describe the long history of foreign rule in Ireland, going back 800 years. Is this explicable as a series of religious conflicts - even before the Reformation?
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
blackbeard - the greatest power in Europe to the Urals by numbers, money, influence for nearly two millenia has been Christianity. Bar none. The church. Schism is neither here nor there. They've all failed the same test. It tithed everybody and more for more than a millenium. The crusades. Imperialism. World wars. Were driven, sanctioned, blessed, COMMANDED by the church.

Any opposition to this - from Atilla and Islam to Lenin and Hitler - was the other side of the same Beastly Roman counterfeit coin.

In which way does religion - that means OURS, our mother returned to her old and the oldest trade - not cause wars?
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
I would suggest, for example, that the Spanish conquest of the new world was motivated from the top by the desire to save souls -- undoubtedly not to the exclusion of all other motives, but what in humanity is based on only one motivation?
That's not a good example for the point you're trying to make. On any occasion when they were faced with the choice to save souls or to increase the takings of gold and silver, the Spanish on the ground chose the latter and the hierarchy went along with it.
(The religious orders, especially the Dominicans and later the Jesuits, were hostile to the conquest and argued that it didn't save souls or win converts.)
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Did that include the Franciscans?
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
quetzcoatl wrote:

quote:
So are you saying that the Catholic/Protestant conflict has been the prime driving force in Irish politics, or the Irish/British conflict?

I think some anti-theists have put that forward to illustrate the pernicious effects of religion. However, I would like to see how they (or you) describe the long history of foreign rule in Ireland, going back 800 years. Is this explicable as a series of religious conflicts - even before the Reformation?

The conflict in Ireland may very well predate the schisms of the Reformation. However, the question is: How do the participants themselves frame the issues today? You had said that "the loyalists are not marching against transubstantiation". What I'm saying is that, for Ian Paisley, theological disputes do indeed seem to be very front-and-centre in his mind.

And I am going to make speculate that he is not the only person on the loyalist side fretting over whether Catholics worship Mary, the Pope is the antichrist, etc.

But I've never said that religion was the root cause of the problem, just that it might be a motivating factor for some of the actors.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Stetson

Nobody denies that religion plays a part. But the word 'loyalist' gives us a clue, as does the word 'unionist' in the name of Paisley's party, 'Democratic Unionist Party'. Now I wonder what the word 'union' refers to? Perhaps to sexual congress between man and wife? Hmm.
 
Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
To portray this as primarily a religious conflict is historically illiterate.
So, I'm taking it from this comment that the Ulster Plantation had no religious significance, that Cromwell had no religious motivation, that King Billy had no religious significance and that my friend who has a combat medal for service in Northern Ireland shouldn't have received his medal, because it wasn't a war.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
To portray this as primarily a religious conflict is historically illiterate.
So, I'm taking it from this comment that the Ulster Plantation had no religious significance, that Cromwell had no religious motivation, that King Billy had no religious significance and that my friend who has a combat medal for service in Northern Ireland shouldn't have received his medal, because it wasn't a war.
It seems odd to infer that the Plantation had no religious significance; where did I say that?

You know the joke told down the Falls Rd - that King Billy was supported by the Pope? I believe this is correct; some even argue that prayers were said in Rome when the battle of the Boyne was won. I don't know if this is correct, and of course, it is all now woven so much into the various mythologies, that it's difficult to separate out the actual history.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Just as a footnote to that, the conquests and reconquests of Ireland are very interesting and very complicated. Just as an example, it seems pretty clear that some of the medieval Norman rulers became 'Gaelicized' and adopted the Irish language and culture. But English control remained intact around Dublin.

The Tudor conquest of Ireland is therefore in many ways a reconquest, and Henry was declared King of Ireland.

To argue that these conquests were primarily religious would seem very odd. Of course, the Irish/English conflict did acquire a religious aspect - for example, Tudor state power in Ireland involved the attempted imposition of Anglicanism, and also the suppression of Irish language and culture.

[ 12. March 2013, 13:15: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
If religion were to disappear today, no one to remember it existed, does anyone honestly think conflict would disappear?
Oh, yes, the vikings would have stayed in Scandinavia, where they wouldn't be anyway, if it were not for nasty religion.
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
quetzalcoatl wrote:

quote:
But the word 'loyalist' gives us a clue, as does the word 'unionist' in the name of Paisley's party, 'Democratic Unionist Party'. Now I wonder what the word 'union' refers to? Perhaps to sexual congress between man and wife? Hmm.

Well, at least in the case of Paisley, I'm guessing that he is loyal to the UK, and favours continued union with said entity, in part because he worries that severing that relationship will lead to the Antichrist having increased power over protestants in Northern Ireland.
 
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If religion were to disappear today, no one to remember it existed, does anyone honestly think conflict would disappear?
But this really isn't the same thing as saying that religion doesn't cause wars. It may be that we would find a substitute for religion in this regard -- but you could say the same thing about finding alternatives for our spiritual lives if religion didn't exist. Does that mean that religion is not a conduit for our spiritual lives? ISTM that by this line of argument, we are just saying that everything human is caused by our nature, and all of the constructs we have developed for expressing that have no causal reality -- science doesn't cause material progress, our nature does; industrialization doesn't cause man-made climate change, our nature does; guns don't kill people, our nature does; etc.

At some point, this notion has to be recognized as vacuous. We need to acknowledge that saying "guns kill people" is a shorthand for a complicated thought that reflects the human motivation to having created them in the first place. If we say that religion causes wars, we are saying something along the lines that the impetus to build an institution for conveying our spiritual aspriations has within it the seeds of inter-group conflict. Saying that we could have created a different vector does not really add any content to the discussion at all AFAICS.

--Tom Clune
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Originally posted by tclune:
quote:
We need to acknowledge that saying "guns kill people" is a shorthand for a complicated thought that reflects the human motivation to having created them in the first place. If we say that religion causes wars, we are saying something along the lines that the impetus to build an institution for conveying our spiritual aspriations has within it the seeds of inter-group conflict.
In other words, it is our nature.
The OP asks for examples of wars caused by religion with no underlying cause. For every example given thus far, there has been an underlying cause. This suggests that religion is an accelerant, not a primary fuel. Does religion act as an accelerant? Absolutely.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
If we say that religion causes wars, we are saying something along the lines that the impetus to build an institution for conveying our spiritual aspriations has within it the seeds of inter-group conflict. Saying that we could have created a different vector does not really add any content to the discussion at all AFAICS.
Yeah, but it's so much easier for religious people to hide behind "we'd still have wars if there was no religion" than to face up to that seed of conflict that is inherent within religion.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Simply because an accelerant is not necessary, does not imply that it is good.
 
Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Simply because an accelerant is not necessary, does not imply that it is good.
Just because something can be used as an accelerant (has the seed of accelerant within it) doesn't mean it doesn't have other, legitimate uses that outweigh its potential for harm. Pick any accelerant you like; few if any of them were designed as accelerants.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Not arguing that, MT. We have to examine the way in which we use materials.
 
Posted by Pasco (# 388) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
If we say that religion causes wars, we are saying something along the lines that the impetus to build an institution for conveying our spiritual aspriations has within it the seeds of inter-group conflict. Saying that we could have created a different vector does not really add any content to the discussion at all AFAICS.
Yeah, but it's so much easier for religious people to hide behind "we'd still have wars if there was no religion" than to face up to that seed of conflict that is inherent within religion.
It would seem wars aren't caused by religions, rather, as it were by the "powers of the unseen world", namely, occult influences that remain embedded in places like the Vatican and Washington DC, both of whom share the spoils of 'secret' (or in the internet age a somewhat not so secret?) symbolisms, passed down from the dawn of civilisation. "For the battle is not against flesh and blood..." There, however, remains plentiful literature and evidence on the internet concerning practitioners of high level occultism and their arts / of 'illuminated' ones, namely child/human sacrificers. In the dark ages, they perhaps rightly felt in their own eyes, "who said we do not live in an illuminated age?!" According to these practitioners there never was a 'dark' age. Contrarily, it is the low level practioners who are 'deservedly' kept in the dark, since only those who have understood (the 'secret') and are prepared to go the distance to be truly 'illuminated' deservedly end up going places.

Concentrated occult forces such as in hardcore Washington DC, Skull and Bonesmen, High Freemasonry, not to mention the cellars of the Vatican all have a known healthy turnover of child and 'other' sacrifices, which of course you will be told 'is baloney'.

Nazi concentration camps, itself designed around an inverted pentagram, aided and abetted by 'illuminated' (assuredly code for 'practioners of human sacrifice') a.k.a in this instance occult "alumbrados" Vaticanists (under the guise of appearing to be 'Roman Catholics'), alongside occult Nazis ('Roman Catholics', 'Protestant' even (yes!) occult 'Jews' what-have-you, ensure a healthy supply of seeming 'undesirables', but in reality helping to strengthen the forces that would be expected in the midst of a cleverly disguised (evil) or "inverted" pentagram. The poor cousin Roman Catholics, Protestants, Jews etc not going along with the agenda are offered up as "sacrifice". Others engaged in low level occult activities are destined to remain in the dark and are doomed to be fed "scraps" (ensuring) 'secret' content remains altogether pretty "secret" - ?)

Therefore it is only the fraternity of the "illuminated" ones, albeit by corrupt and devious means that are enabled the resources and the means for an appetite for war...for the greater glory of their respective god (a.k.a) Lucifer. The Federal Reserve after all is in the hands of just such individuals, enabled with the means of a powerful global network and the wherewithal to facilitate wars at will, around the world, i.e. aided and abetted by the miscellaneous secret services all in effect working under the one umbrella.

[Post not aimed at anyone on this board, assuredly so my Roman Catholic/Protestant/Jewish/Atheist brethren]
 
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Yeah, but it's so much easier for religious people to hide behind "we'd still have wars if there was no religion" than to face up to that seed of conflict that is inherent within religion.
That's true, sadly. And it can be used as a very lazy way of not dealing with those seeds, or, as we know, of justifying the conflict they can sew.

The actual causes of war may be far more complex than just religious idealism or even religious idealism gone wrong, but religion has still significance wherever it's part and parcel of the culture, or philosophy or make-up of the combatants.
 
Posted by Laurelin (# 17211) on :
 
Pasco - I certainly believe in the 'principalities and powers in this present darkness and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.' (Eph 6:12) [Cool]

As to whether the dark powers are as well organised as the Illuminati conspiracy theories suppose ... I dunno. [Razz]

(If there is this supposed constant supply of victims for sacrifice - [Eek!] - then wouldn't there be a trail somewhere? Wouldn't people get suspicious about all these other folk disappearing? [Ultra confused] )

Anyway ... whether or not there really is a 'New World Order' gang operating somewhere in the shadows and pulling all the strings, these shadowy figures would hardly be the only humans capable of corruption and violence.

Violence is part of the human DNA. [Frown] It will remain so, and wars will not cease, until the return of the Prince of Peace and his eternal reign of justice and joy.

Eliminating religion would not rid the human soul of its capacity for violence.

I've always liked this quote by Rebecca West (great feminist novelist, not to my knowledge religious):

"Only part of us is sane: only part of us loves pleasure and the longer day of happiness, wants to live to our nineties and die in peace, in a house that we built, that shall shelter those who come after us. The other half of us is nearly mad. It prefers the disagreeable to the agreeable, loves pain and its darker night despair, and wants to die in a catastrophe that will set back life to its beginnings and leave nothing of our house save its blackened foundations."
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
I'm remInded by recent events that Francis of Assisi tried to make peace with the Muslims, to put a stop to the war that the pope's call to crusade had started.

So perhaps thinking of religion as a single thing that has a single effect on our human conflicts is over-simple. The wheat and the tares grow together. Being either for or against religion is actually pretty juvenile; if we're not for some aspects or elements and against others then we're failing to respond to the complexity of the situation.

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by deano (# 12063) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
If we say that religion causes wars, we are saying something along the lines that the impetus to build an institution for conveying our spiritual aspriations has within it the seeds of inter-group conflict. Saying that we could have created a different vector does not really add any content to the discussion at all AFAICS.
Yeah, but it's so much easier for religious people to hide behind "we'd still have wars if there was no religion" than to face up to that seed of conflict that is inherent within religion.
And what is that seed Marvin?

I think you're setting up a strawman here.

I don't doubt that people will use any excuse they can lay their hands on to justify war but I'm not so sure that is inherent in all religions.

Tangent: I can't be doing with conspiracy theorists. They are never correct and probably have "issues" they they are unwilling or unable to get treatment for.

[ 15. March 2013, 12:37: Message edited by: deano ]
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
And what is that seed Marvin?
It's the old "our tribe v.s. their tribe" thing, but with the language of religion thrown in.

Only God can decide what is good and true. Our leaders speak on God's behalf. Our morality is the only one that is Godly and Good and all others are Satanic and Evil. Satan's Evil must be defeated. It is God's Will that we do this. God is with us in this struggle. We are fighting for Good! Onward, Christian Soldiers!

Honestly, I'm surprised you had to be told.
 
Posted by deano (# 12063) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
And what is that seed Marvin?
It's the old "our tribe v.s. their tribe" thing, but with the language of religion thrown in.

Only God can decide what is good and true. Our leaders speak on God's behalf. Our morality is the only one that is Godly and Good and all others are Satanic and Evil. Satan's Evil must be defeated. It is God's Will that we do this. God is with us in this struggle. We are fighting for Good! Onward, Christian Soldiers!

Honestly, I'm surprised you had to be told.
But you have just pointed out what I said in the OP 'lo these many pages ago! That PEOPLE will use relgion - or indeed anything - as an excuse for war.

If religion didn't exist then those wars would have still taken place, but with different justifications.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
tclune - your penultimate sentence is the jewel in the crown of your post.
 
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
It's the old "our tribe v.s. their tribe" thing, but with the language of religion thrown in.

Only God can decide what is good and true. Our leaders speak on God's behalf. Our morality is the only one that is Godly and Good and all others are Satanic and Evil. Satan's Evil must be defeated. It is God's Will that we do this. God is with us in this struggle. We are fighting for Good! Onward, Christian Soldiers!

Honestly, I'm surprised you had to be told.
It's a bit like that Bob Dylan classic, "With God on our Side":

*sings*
Ah my name it ain't nothing,
And my age it means less.
The country I come from
is called the Mid-West.
I's taught and brought up there,
the laws to abide,
That the country I lived in,
Had God on it's side.
 
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by tclune:
If we say that religion causes wars, we are saying something along the lines that the impetus to build an institution for conveying our spiritual aspriations has within it the seeds of inter-group conflict. Saying that we could have created a different vector does not really add any content to the discussion at all AFAICS.
Yeah, but it's so much easier for religious people to hide behind "we'd still have wars if there was no religion" than to face up to that seed of conflict that is inherent within religion.
I'd say that said seed of conflict is otherwise known as human nature. It's part of religion only because humans are part of religion, so I'm not sure that says much about religion.
 
Posted by Mark Betts (# 17074) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I'd say that said seed of conflict is otherwise known as human nature. It's part of religion only because humans are part of religion, so I'm not sure that says much about religion.
[Overused] [Overused] [Overused]
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Religion is LESS than us. It's part of us. Part of a larger part of us as the highest social organism. And we're weak and ignorant. Very. Which is why real Christianity hardly takes.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
If religion didn't exist then those wars would have still taken place, but with different justifications.
The answer then is not to continue to use it as a justification to wage war, not to say it doesn't matter; but perhaps use it as a justification to cease war.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Perhaps!?
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Need to break it to them gently, Martin. New concepts and all.
 
Posted by deano (# 12063) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Need to break it to them gently, Martin. New concepts and all.
Sadly I think you and Martin misunderstand. The wars would still have happened, but they would NOT have been called religious.

You CANNOT stop war. Full stop. End of discussion. It is inherent in humanity. Sorry and all that, but there you go.

Christianity CANNOT stop it. No religion can.

The only think anyone of faith can do is to point out when religion is being used as a fig-leaf for a power or money grab.

So sorry guys, but you two seem to have missed the point.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Then there is no point to Christianity.
 
Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Then there is no point to Christianity.
Visiting the sick, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked are pointless?

Moo
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
Deano,

If you would judge intent, you really should read all the relevant posts. I've said religion does not cause wars.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
But forgive me, I can't back down. Even in the face of war, what you say is the only possible, real enough response to war.

But I cannot back down.

And fumbling my way I feel that we are both therefore right and deano is wrong. I defer to you and then rebound and run amok. It is through feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, widows, orphans, afflicted, imprisoned we well put an end to war.

“Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?” Browning. As you would know.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
Ya'll still talking about this strawman?

Everybody knows it's Atheism that causes wars.
 
Posted by Steve Langton (# 17601) on :
 
Religion causes war?
The point almost everyone in this forum seems to be missing is that to have a war involving religion, the religion must be involved in a state or nation – or trying forcibly to be so. Also the religion must accept warfare as a valid ethical option. Given that presupposition, yes there are times when religion causes war, times when it is used as a pretext, and times when different religions on each side of a war means that a dispute which is perhaps really about something else becomes extra-intransigent because neither side can surrender a cause they see as their god’s cause – as witness the cry ‘No Surrender’ in Ulster.

Most religions have started as national and so are integral with initially a particular ethnic group and later a large territorial state, and so naturally become involved in their state’s wars (including, as in 17th Century England, civil wars). Of what might be called the classic religions, only two are not thus limited – Buddhism and Christianity. Buddhism has become a national religion in some states and so involved in wars, but really should be pacifist because of its philosophical view of the world. Christianity should be pacifist because Jesus said at square one his ‘kingdom’ is not ‘of this world’, and the subjects of the Kingdom are those ‘born again’ through faith of any race or nation. The New Testament depicts Christians living as peaceable ‘resident aliens’ in whatever nation, their native land or another, a people who may be engaged in a spiritual war but their warfare is ‘not with physical weapons’. So long as Christians stick to that New Testament view of their faith the Christian religion cannot cause wars – though they may be persecuted for their non-conformity in many states.

Only some 300 years after Jesus did Christianity get ‘nationalised’ by a Roman Empire trying to replace a pagan religion which had lost credibility. Only then could Christianity become a war-involved religion – but of course in serious disobedience to the Christian God.
 
Posted by Michael Snow (# 16363) on :
 
Charles Spurgeon's take: "…The Lord Jesus Christ is our peace in a second sense, namely, in making peace between nations. That there are wars in the world at the present time is not the consequence of anything that Christ has said, but of the lusts of our flesh. As I understand the Word of God, I always rejoice to find a soldier a Christian, but I always mourn to find a Christian a soldier, for it seems to me that when I take up Christ Jesus, I hear one of His Laws, “I say unto you, resist not evil...."
http://spurgeonwarquotes.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/christ-our-peace-2/
 
Posted by Russ (# 120) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Michael Snow:
That there are wars in the world at the present time is not the consequence of anything that Christ has said, but of the lusts of our flesh.
Seems to me that the evil that starts wars is not of the flesh but of the spirit - pride, envy, the desire to impose one's own will on others which is the will to power.

You're right that the Words of Christ do not start wars.

Where religion is baneful is when it baptises the will to war. If your nation and another are simply disputing territory, then an agreed compromise may be a good-enough low-risk outcome for both sides. If you're crusading against the Evil Empire of the Infidels led by the Great Satan, then such compromise is seen as sinful.

Best wishes,

Russ
 
Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by 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.

Something upon which we largely agree.

I also don't think that religion causes wars though the list of causes may be wider than just money and power - but it sometimes provides an excuse for those who are intent upon conflict, has been used as justification for horrendous crimes and is often mercilessly manipulated to motivate the cannon-fodder. (True believers don't jump into foxholes).
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
True believers don't jump into foxholes.
Is this to say that 'true' Christians don't join the army?

One of my interests is church history from a social perspective, and I was interested to hear that Methodist soldiers had a particular presence in the British army in the 18th c. One book on my to-read list is Michael Snape, 'The Redcoat and Religion: The Forgotten History of the British Soldier from the Age of Marlborough to the Eve of the First World War'. (The same author's written another book called 'God and the British Soldier: Religion and the British Army in the First and Second World Wars'.)

But to me, the funny thing with the 'religion = war' thing is that it only seems to work with men. Women are often said to be the more religious sex, but women's religiosity supposedly makes them docile, not war-hungry. How weird is that?!! It's a funny old world.

[ 23. March 2013, 17:21: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
 
Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
True believers don't jump into foxholes.
Is this to say that 'true' Christians don't join the army?
No it’s a rather trite response to the even more trite “There are no atheists in foxholes” which often gets trotted out in such discussions (though not, I hope, on such distinguished sites as SoF). The hypothesis being that anyone who truly believes that their deity has a plan for them will know that the deity will protect them even when they charge into a hail of bullets. Anyone who seeks to avoid said bullets is, if not a full blown atheist, less than a true believer. Then we get surprised when devout religious people are manipulated into doing things like flying aircraft into buildings.
quote:
But to me, the funny thing with the 'religion = war' thing is that it only seems to work with men. Women are often said to be the more religious sex, but women's religiosity supposedly makes them docile, not war-hungry. How weird is that?!! It's a funny old world.
Testosterone versus child-rearing instincts? Too simplistic of course but perhaps a contributory factor?

Actually – I’m not sure that your analysis is correct. Traditionally women’s’ roles tended to preclude active service (though Joan of Arc got her way didn’t she and QE1 was known to rally the troops) but I think you’ll find that women have often played major roles in encouraging their menfolk to fight in conflicts which at least had a religious element (perhaps most conflicts have some religious angle?). An historian’s knowledge might be handy but I think of those who handed out white feathers during WW1 and those women who were much feared by military/police personnel during the troubles in Northern Ireland. There have also been several female suicide bombers in recent years. Female members were active in such as the Red Army Faction ( Baader-Meinhof Gang ) during the 1970s and 80s. (Meinhof was not considered a leader but she certainly played an active role).
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
“There are no atheists in foxholes” [means] that anyone who truly believes that their deity has a plan for them will know that the deity will protect them even when they charge into a hail of bullets. Anyone who seeks to avoid said bullets is, if not a full blown atheist, less than a true believer. Then we get surprised when devout religious people are manipulated into doing things like flying aircraft into buildings.
Ah. That's interesting. To me, this phrase means that when faced with potentially fatal danger on the battlefield, every soldier hopes that God will save him, even if he publicly claims not to believe in God. I've never taken it to mean that that Christian (or Muslim, etc.) soldiers don't or shouldn't experience fear.

quote:
I think you’ll find that women have often played major roles in encouraging their menfolk to fight in conflicts which at least had a religious element (perhaps most conflicts have some religious angle?). An historian’s knowledge might be handy but I think of those who handed out white feathers during WW1 and those women who were much feared by military/police personnel during the troubles in Northern Ireland. There have also been several female suicide bombers in recent years. Female members were active in such as the Red Army Faction ( Baader-Meinhof Gang ) during the 1970s and 80s. (Meinhof was not considered a leader but she certainly played an active role).
Oh, I don't doubt this influence and participation. But it's not generally seen to be the result of an outpouring of female religiosity, except in a few notable cases.
 
Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
“There are no atheists in foxholes” [means] that anyone who truly believes that their deity has a plan for them will know that the deity will protect them even when they charge into a hail of bullets. Anyone who seeks to avoid said bullets is, if not a full blown atheist, less than a true believer. Then we get surprised when devout religious people are manipulated into doing things like flying aircraft into buildings.
Ah. That's interesting. To me, this phrase means that when faced with potentially fatal danger on the battlefield, every soldier hopes that God will save him, even if he publicly claims not to believe in God. I've never taken it to mean that that Christian (or Muslim, etc.) soldiers don't or shouldn't experience fear.

That is what people who use it mean by it – it’s silly of course and the alternative I suggested is also simplistic. I know a man who was one of the last four (possibly the last) member of Bomber Command to drop a bomb on Nazi Germany. He was shot down during his second tour (first tour was thirty ops) in Halifaxes, evaded with the help of the resistance for five months, got back to England and went back to flying (Mosquitos this time). He will tell you that the experience of being in an airborne foxhole was the most convincing evidence he ever knew for the absence of a divinity.
quote:
I think you’ll find that women have often played major roles in encouraging their menfolk to fight in conflicts which at least had a religious element (perhaps most conflicts have some religious angle?). An historian’s knowledge might be handy but I think of those who handed out white feathers during WW1 and those women who were much feared by military/police personnel during the troubles in Northern Ireland. There have also been several female suicide bombers in recent years. Female members were active in such as the Red Army Faction ( Baader-Meinhof Gang ) during the 1970s and 80s. (Meinhof was not considered a leader but she certainly played an active role).
Oh, I don't doubt this influence and participation. But it's not generally seen to be the result of an outpouring of female religiosity, except in a few notable cases.
Since I’m not sure that religion is often a reason why men start wars either I question whether there is any great variation between men and women in this respect. I do know that religion is used as an excuse to start/prolong/glorify war and as a means (amongst others) of desensitising the combatants.
 
Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
I know a man who was one of the last four (possibly the last) member of Bomber Command to drop a bomb on Nazi Germany. He was shot down during his second tour (first tour was thirty ops) in Halifaxes, evaded with the help of the resistance for five months, got back to England and went back to flying (Mosquitos this time). He will tell you that the experience of being in an airborne foxhole was the most convincing evidence he ever knew for the absence of a divinity.
Yes, I'm sure there were many combatants and civilians who suffered the horrors of WWII and were left as convinced atheists as a result. 'There are no atheists in foxholes' is a dangerously sweeping generalisation that forgets how warfare can undermine faith as well as bolstering it.

Of course, this challenges the idea that religion inevitably desensitises the soldier to warfare. If we're talking about early modern and modern societies in the West, where cannon-fodder are often men from the lowest classes of society rather than being every able-bodied man in the tribe, they're unlikely to be the most religious types, on the whole; warfare may boost up their sense of patriotic religiosity, but this isn't their normal modus operandi. The long term result may be a sense of disengagment from and cynicism about religious doctrines and institutions. Historians have often said as much about WWI and WWII.

The truth is probably a mixture of factors. It's quite possible that an atheist might pray in his foxhole, but on later reflexion he might find his atheism strengthened. Other atheists might already have arrived in the warzone with a robust and sophisticated philosophy of life to replace religion. Some soldiers, whatever their beliefs, may already have decided that death in battle is a glorious destiny, in which case praying to be saved would be pointless.
 
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
My grandfather came back from WWI cursing officers and clergymen, and did so to the end of his life. In fact, if a vicar or any other minister knocked at the door, which they still did in those days, he practically had to be held down in the chair, as he would become enraged and vociferous. I reckon all the ministers of the town knew his address! I don't think he was the only one of his comrades like that either. He said that the officers treated them like dogs, and the clergy just slapped them on the back as they went over the top.
 
Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
The hypothesis being that anyone who truly believes that their deity has a plan for them will know that the deity will protect them even when they charge into a hail of bullets. Anyone who seeks to avoid said bullets is, if not a full blown atheist, less than a true believer.
Well, there are some that believe the "plan" does not extend to when and where they will shuffle of to the pearly gates. Free will and all that. Or as one friend put it. "Yeah, I'd love to meet Jesus, but I prefer to enjoy the anticipation a bit longer."
 
Posted by HughWillRidmee (# 15614) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
The hypothesis being that anyone who truly believes that their deity has a plan for them will know that the deity will protect them even when they charge into a hail of bullets. Anyone who seeks to avoid said bullets is, if not a full blown atheist, less than a true believer.
Well, there are some that believe the "plan" does not extend to when and where they will shuffle of to the pearly gates. Free will and all that. Or as one friend put it. "Yeah, I'd love to meet Jesus, but I prefer to enjoy the anticipation a bit longer."
Or, as my mother used to say before doing something she felt her deity had failed to undertake for her, "God helps those who help themselves". We both heard the same words but chose to interpret them differently.
 
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :
 
Just posted your sig on my church FaceBook page 'aitchDubbyeR.
 
Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :
 
I was half watching a programme about the origins of Islam today . What came across strongly was the unifying power of this new faith, and how it suppressed the continuous feuds and tribal wars occurring among different factions over water supplies and such like.

Maybe we're being a bit hard on ourselves as to just how big a part religion plays with regards to human violence. A factor yes . The exclusive cause no.
 
Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :
 
The Borg is a unifying power, too. Unifying can be good or bad, depending on the terms.
 
Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Michael Snow:
[qb]Seems to me that the evil that starts wars is not of the flesh but of the spirit - pride, envy, the desire to impose one's own will on others which is the will to power.
Well, consider Sudan. The southern portion has most of the oil and is predominantly dark skinned Christian. The northern part is more barren and predominantly Arab Muslim. When Arab Muslims send ruthless paramilitary groups against black Christian communities, is that a matter of spirit or flesh? Sure, they want control, but they also want the money and the power that goes with it.

I'm not sure the spirit and flesh are so easily picked apart.
 


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