Can religion be blamed for war?

[emad]

Great start to the Christian calendar - Lent starts tomorrow


By Mike Wooldridge
BBC World Affairs Correspondent
<snip>:

Are religion and religious differences to blame for war and conflict? Many war leaders have claimed to have God on their side, but should religion get the blame? A "War Audit" investigating the links between war and religion through the ages has been carried out by researchers at the Department of Peace Studies at Bradford University.
George Bush was in little doubt about how the US-led coalition would bring down Saddam Hussein. "With the might of God on our side we will triumph over Iraq," the President declared. "God will watch over our troops and grant us a victory over the threat of Saddam's army. God will bless us and keep us safe in the coming battle."

But God's help was being invoked in Baghdad, too. Saddam Hussein told Iraqis: "Fight as God ordered you to do." So does that makes last year's Iraq conflict a religious war? The authors of the War Audit suggest that it was arguably a war driven by religion. But, as they point out, the Pope and the US Catholic bishops, the Archbishop of Canterbury and many theologians around the world argued that it fell well short of the rigorous criteria for a "just" war. President Bush and Saddam Hussein were only the most recent of a long line of political leaders who have drawn on religion to help them in battle or to justify a military campaign. But the War Audit set out to identify conflicts that were more closely linked to religious belief than to political causes - that could most properly be called religious wars. And that, it concluded, means going back to the wars of Islamic expansion beginning in the 7th Century, the Crusades starting in the 11th Century and the Reformation wars beginning in the 16th Century. Here the wars were fought primarily because of religious differences. Most are much more complex.


SELECTED EXTRACTS FROM RELIGIOUS TEXTS
'Then you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them and show them no mercy' (Torah, Book of Deuteronomy 7:1-2)
'Thou shall not kill' (Torah, Book of Exodus 20:13)
'All who take the sword will perish by the sword' (New Testament, Matthew 5:43-44)
'Fight in the cause of God against those who fight you, but aggress not' (Koran 2:190)
'Whoever fights in the cause of God, then gets killed or attains victory, we will surely grant him a great recompense' (Koran 4:74)
'When all efforts to restore peace prove useless and no words avail, lawful is the flash of steel' (10th Sikh guru, Guru Gobind Singh)
'May your weapons be strong to drive away the attackers, may your arms be powerful enough to check the foes, let your army be glorious, not the evil-doer' (Hinduism's Rig Veda 1-39:2)
Osama Bin Laden portrays the campaign being waged by his terror network as a religious duty.

But the authors of the War Audit say it is much more about his opposition to the political order in Arab countries and the presence of US forces in Muslim nations. One of the most extraordinary armed campaigns I have witnessed was that of the Holy Spirit Movement in Uganda in the 1980s, the forerunner of the Lord's Resistance Army that remains locked in battle with the Ugandan army in northern Uganda today. Alice Lakwena, the leader of the Holy Spirit Movement, claimed that God had commanded her to seize the Ugandan capital and I and other journalists found and interviewed her in a banana grove about 100 kilometres (60 miles) short of Kampala. Superstition played a large part in the progress her ragtag band of followers had made. They smeared themselves with a potion they were told would protect them against the army's bullets. But this bizarre campaign has also fed on northern political grievances in Uganda. And this is echoed down the ages. The War Audit says that although armed conflicts may take on religious overtones, their genesis invariably lies in factors such as ethnicity, identity, power struggles, resources, inequality and oppression - and one factor is often exacerbated by another. It is often suggested that there has been a sharp rise in religiously motivated conflict. But the authors of the War Audit say there have been very few genuinely religious wars in the past century.

From:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/wtwtgod/3513709.stm

[ixion]

1. Can you say 'Crusades'?

I believe that organized religion has been, at the very least, invoked and used as a rationale more often than not in the history of humanity. More often than not, the true motivation was plunder and conquest, but by invoking 'god' it made the plunder morally acceptable.

[emad]

6. Organised religion = organised crime

since year dot.

'God' probably doesn't give a monkey's....

[Muddleoftheroad]

8. Anti-religious hatred

Equals every other hatred.

[emad]

12. Not to law enforcement officers who have busted child sex rings

especially in Catholic and Anglican churches.

It's hard not to be cynical - unless of course your'e facing total bankruptcy in the US, UK, Europe and large parts of Asia, having been sued by the thousands of victims of religious sex abuse of minors...

AND realise that the 'missing $70 million' that God's Banker Roberto Calvi stashed away in the Bahamas in 1982 when Banco Ambrosiano collaplse owing nearly $1billion have just been found by the cops, who have all the names and account numbers of those involved in 1970s and 1980s sex rings that were supposedly covered up and hushed up for ever....

[Muddleoftheroad]

14. Ah, the unsurpising Catholic Church bashing

Enjoy yourself.

[emad]

16. Anglicans are not Catholics

but their cover-ups of child sex rings have been as elaborate and extensive. Can't think of anything to exonerate either.

Denial can feel very comfortable to those who haven't lost a kid to this evil

[Muddleoftheroad]

18. However, Catholics are Catholics

"Not to law enforcement officers who have busted child sex rings
especially in Catholic and Anglican churches."

I am not in denial. Child abuse and molestation happen in every walk of life.

[Az]

21. The focus of child abuse issues on the catholic church is unfair

It unfortunately is endemic in most sects. Not just the Catholic church. The Catholics have caught the unfortunate attention of the media and they tried to hide it which complicated the matter.

The reason churches have this problem is complex and has much to do with the nature of the problem and our society. Pedophiles know they are at odds with society. This is not a pleasant condition. They want to be good but they are driven by urges they know to be wrong. The religious subtext in our society suggests that by bringing yourself closer to god you are made stronger and able to battle your personal demons. Thus these individuals are drawn to the church. They often enter the clergy as a means of purging their problems.

Unfortunately the churches are ill equipped to deal with their problems. They are kept cloistered and away from the world until they are ready to take on their stations. At that time they are given near absolute trust by their flock. This and the sudden availability of children overrides their resistance and they begin to take advantage of their situation.

This is true of all sects. It is unfortunate for the Catholic church that their structure for years hid these people. As Nixon learned, its not the crime that gets you in trouble. Its the cover up.

[Muddleoftheroad]

24. All groups

The only unique thing about the Catholic Church in this way is the concepts of confession and forgiveness. I do however take issue with you view that pedophiles want to do good. No they don't. They want to molest children.

[emad]

26. It's not unfair.

It's not just the cover ups of the thousands of cases, both in the US and elsewhere.

There is an imminent story about to break in the UK about an extremely high profile child abuse case from the early 1960s. An eventual successful prosecution of the sex ring through the criminal justice system after six and seven year old, trusting kids gave evidence in open court. And how several jailed paedophiles from this criminal action eventually left jail, tracked the kids down, raped and tortured those they could and atempted to utterly ruin the personal reputations of those they couldn't physically harm.

At least 10 of the ecclesiastical members of the sex ring evaded punishment. Four are known members of the Curia and one was recently promoted by JP2 to high office.

Just waiting for the Banco Ambrosiano bank accounts details to be published in the UK.

[emad]

23. It just so happens that the US Catholic Church is virtually

bankrupt and its officers are bracing themselves for the appalling reality of their cover up. The Calvi business is the tip of the ice berg.

[Az]

17. Careful

We cannot turn our backs on the blood that was shed by the churches. If it helps you to deal with the issue it can be explained away as religious structures that do not follow the teachings you find in your religious beliefs. But the truth is that religions can lead people into zealous rages. Our history is filled with examples. And its not just the Judeo/Xian sects. It is any time you have an absolute belief system collide with another. Be it the Catholic church or the Soviet Union. Absolute systems lead to conflict in a diverse world. Its really that simple. It has nothing to do with any particular religion. It is a simple nature of systems.

[emad]

20. Catholic Church has made a lot more money out of gullible

people for far longer than the Soviet Union.

All patriarchal deist structures which promise divine redemption after death in exchange for blind obedience and regular cash support in the present life are corrupt.

All those who invoke a Godhead in the name of conflict are cunning, corrupt and successful in brainwashing their target audience.

The Catholic Church continues a deceit to bolster its flagging reputation. All good things end eventually.

[Muddleoftheroad]

25. What gibberish

"All patriarchal deist structures which promise divine redemption after death in exchange for blind obedience and regular cash support in the present life are corrupt."

All anti-religious people need to take their blinders off and stop hating religion or those who practice it.

[emad]

27. Not anti-religious. Anti-criminal, anti-paedophile, anti-whitewash

and anti-denial and ignorance of those too fearful of protecting minors

[Muddleoftheroad]

29. I love to protect minors

I just don't single out the church as the only place where abuse takes place.

[emad]

40. No but it is the largest single organised entity to keep being

busted for child abuse and for covering it up. Its political contributions have been enormous and have succeeded in ensuring continued cover up of unpunished sex rings.

[Muddleoftheroad]

41. You don't understand Catholicism it seems

Catholicism has this thing called confession. If you confess and are forgiven, you get to go on with your life. In addition, NOTHING said in the confessional can be relayed to others in the outside world.

[emad]

43. I understand it allright because when I was a child I was fostered

temporarily into a east European Catholic family while a police search was under way to reunite me with my real (non-Catholic) parents. They made me convert, take religious instruction, communion, confirmation, the whole works. And I though it sucked.

When I first started to work as a journalist in the early 1970s I was one of several who published their corroborated accounts (ie verified cases that had gone through the UK criminal courts and had been reported in the national press) of how UK kids were made to publicly 'forgive' the paedophoiles who had raped and tortured them and how these sessions of forgiveness were filmed and shown throughout UK parishes, to prove that the paedophoiles who had committed these offences were truly reformed characters who had sworn an oath infront of their local Bishops that they would never again re offend. On this basis, many escaped post-prison monitoring.

None of these so called reformed characters was able to desist and, from my notes, I recall that 28 of these sex offenders went on to re offend almost immediately.

From my personal experience, I say that confession is whitewash and does not change a thing. It merely provides the illusion that some cleric has supernatural powers - a 'hotline' to a putative Creator - and can 'forgive' a sinner on behalf of the Almighty, in exchange for a penance: a prayer, some more elaborate religious observance and usually a financial donation into the Church's poor box.

This is a protection racket whatever way you look at it.

[Muddleoftheroad]

45. You clearly missed that "forgiveness" thing

As well, our understanding of child molestation and pedophilia has changed with time.

[emad]

46. You can personally forgive a paedophile who has raped and

tortured you when you were 3 years old, you can forgive him for slitting the throat of the four year old held in the same cellar as you and eigtht other kids under ten years old who were all repeatedly raped and tortured, you can even try to move on when you have rebuilt your life.

What actually happened to the survivors of the sex ring I am writing about is that four years after the ring was broken they were persuaded to testify against those paedophiles who were caught by the police and charged on the basis of forensic evidence as well as witness testimony from adults who turned states evidence. There were eventually over a dozen convictions.

Some ten years later, a number of these convicted offenders were granted parole and hunted down the kids who testified aganist them. Four were found murdered, four were hospitalised after brutal torture that didn't quite end in death. Of these, three have subsequently testified to the attempts by Catholic parishes to ruin their reputations as adults, including being framed for offences entirely unconnected to them.

Forgiveness makes no difference to sex offenders or to those who cover up for them. It is just a way of expiating personal guilt.

No one can absolve anyone else of 'sin' by claiming divine powers granted by an ecclesiastical hierarchy that claims a direct and exclusive hotline to a Creator. The cycle of sex crimes continues regardless.

[Muddleoftheroad]

50. Great hyperbolic example

Look, if you want to campaign to keep child molesters in jail for life or give the worst of those offenders the death penalty, I'll be the FIRST to sign up.

But our societal understanding of this issue has changed. You attack a church that has been around for 2,000 years and wasn't able to adapt to this insidious problem. Your views on the subject are unforgiving and biased.

[emad]

51. Child rape and torture is still child rape and torture no matter

when it happens or how 'understanding' society becomes.

My views are identical not only to the majority of vicitms I know but also to those of parents you have campaigned after a son or daughter was raped, molested, tortured and/or murdered by paedophiles. Or pretty similar to those journalists who have sat in court, reporting on such cases.

All those who act as apologist for 2000 years of organised, systematic cover up in the Catholic Church are usually ignorant of the documented history of its involvement in sustaining and perpetuating child abuse.

All the law enforcement officers I have known for the last 45 years who worked in vice/organised crime both in the UK and the US have concurred that only the tip of the iceberg has been made public.

I have tried forgiveness on a personal/moral basis. It make no difference to those criminals who perpetuate such crimes against children. Or to those who apologise for the cover ups.

It is difficult not to be biased if you are a witness. Or if you have spent a week in a cold, wet cellar with the rapidly decomposing body of a child you were gangraped with, wondering why you are the survivor. Or if you have subsequently seen the system that bolsters the cover-up, and promotes the paedophiles who got away with their crimes, and were reassimilated into society - often right up the career ladder into prominent roles in politics, the judiciary, the city, the church, various top professions etc. Or if you have reported on the financial successes of those who should have been executed for child rape, torture and/or murder.

[Muddleoftheroad]

54. Again

You are just missing the point.

If I am a priest and I confess my sins to my boss -- then my boss the bishop does NOT know them nor can he report them to anyone. That's the way confession works.

Because of this and the access to children, it is only natural that pedophiles were drawn to the church. Just as they are drawn to baby-sitting, coaching, teaching, social work and ANY field that works with kids.

But in all those others, you can report what you learn to police. In Catholicism, you can't if you learn it in the confessional.

[emad]

58. An ideal scenario but:

Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, JP2's personal secretary, was one of the proests busted in the Henley sex ring in 1961 when he was just recently ordained. Those that have protected him and greased his way up the ecclesiastical ladder should be tried in public.

[Muddleoftheroad]

60. You can't try people for how they vote

That smacks of Stalinism.

[emad]

62. No but you can sue them, jail the perps, fine them until they're

bankrupt, close down their institutions and support structures and publish the names of all tose who contributed to the whitewash

[Muddleoftheroad]

64. No you can't

Yes, you can sue. Good luck jailing peole over 25-year-old crimes.
But if you try to close down the institutions, you are intruding on Freedom of Religion.

You can't do that.

[emad]

65. The UN Security Council has TWICE thrown out the papal rep

who has observer status only at the UN because of 'incitement to perverting the course of justice'.

[Muddleoftheroad]

66. Like that matters

Seriously, it's not like the UN is any paragon of anything.

[emad]

67. Only to someone entrenched in denial

...the last refuge of those who tolerate the intolerable

[Muddleoftheroad]

68. The problem with zealots

Is they sometimes don't even see when people are mostly on their side. If you don't toe the party line 100%, you are the enemy.

[emad]

69. In AA and Narcotics Anonymous, they have a definition of denial:

They call it 'Stinking thinking'.

All the zealots I have ever reported on professionally could never resist geting in the last word of an argument - except in court when the judge said: "Send him/her down".

Plus ca change....

[Muddleoftheroad]

70. Your comments bespeak zealotry as well

Perhaps you have been studying the phenomenon too long.

[emad]

74. A job is a job is a job is a job

I don't study. I work

[Az]

71. That is often true of any groups close to each other

An individual of great difference is not a threat to the structure of a group. Their ideals cannot be easily intergrated into an active structure.

Someone close to a group however may well pull some away because of similarities. Minor differences are a greater threat than major ones. Thus extreme reactions are reserved for those closest to us.

It is said that love and hate are opposite sides of the same coin. This is not far from the truth. Combined with the issues above you do not develop intense feelings for someone far removed from your position. Thus hate is often direct towards those you had hope in.

[PVnRT]

30. Ummm

I hate to tell you this, but no religious doctrine requires cash support. Many of them suggest that you should, in fact, give a lot of your stuff away to those that need it. Organized religious structures, on the other hand, have been known to require it.

[Az]

34. Ummmm

Its called Tithing. Yes, many religions advocate altruism. But they also suggest supporting the clergy as well. Some more than others. Nothing horribly evil here. Just a correction. An unfunded religion dies out quickly.

[emad]

39. Both Islam and Judaism ask for 10%

Many evangelical Christian sects also ask for this amount which can be tax deductible, depending on where you live. In Germany, the state pays the Catholic Church from general taxation revenue.

[rman]

57. unsurpising ignoring of facts

Any critisism is equated to hatred; be it critisism of religion in general, christianity, or Israel. Any foundation for such critsism is ignored.

[kiahzero]

44. Organized Religion != Religion (n/t)

[Blue_Chill]

15. Organized anything = Organized crime by your standards

You bring up sex crimes and money scandal. Wake up and look around at the world you live in cheif. Goverments steal and sell people. They cover for criminals and use power to silence dissent.

Blame all religion is you want but the fact is the human is the flaw not the group or the organization.

[emad]

42. The collapse of the Vatican Bank in 1982 was almost coverd up

until 'God's Banker' Roberto Calvi was found hanging under Blackfriars Bridge in London in the summer of 1982. Initially it was thought to be suicide because the Vatican lost over £800 million of parishes' money, personal clerical accounts' money as well as money allegedly belonging to the hierarchy of bishops, archbishops and cardinals.

Last autumn the City of London police re opened Calvi's case as a murder investigation, after the Italian police charged four members of the notorious P2 Lodge with murder. This was after the 1991 find of Calvi's brief case, containing all the missing documentation of bank accounts of the P2 Lodge. Names, account numbers, telephone contacts, transaction records etc. A lot of top political people, lawyers, bankers, film actors etc.

The P2 Lodge is a paedophile organisation. The City of London police hold documents about the Lodge's activities in Europe, the US and Asia from the late 1950s to the early 1990s.

Among these papers is evidence that Roberto Calvi, Cardinal Marcinkus, Archbishop Rubin, Cardynal Wyshinski and Price Stansilaw Radziwill (deceased ex husband of Caroline Lee Bouvier Canfield - sister of Jackie Kennedy) ran a pay-as-you-go paedophile club. In the UK it used to meet at the HQ of a Polish clerical organisation called the Marian Fathers in Fawley Court, Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire. This 'order' - still existing today - under the aegis of its then UK head Father Joseph Jarzembowski, sheltered mercenary terorists responsible for UK mainland bombings attributed to the IRA, formerly incarcerated sex offenders from Eastern Europe who fled Stalin's regime but couldn't get official asylum status in the UK because of their past sex convictions in Poland, Belorus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Moldavia, etc, as well as various european money launderers who were on the run for theft/fraud/embezzlement charges in Europe connected to financing former Nazis and Spanish and Italian fascists who had fled to South America. Many of these terrorists were also responsible for fire bombing of US military bases, including air force bases in the High Wycombe area, at Naphill, and Greenham Common.

In 1961 the Marian Fathers expanded their criminal activities by hiring a local vice ring called The Hellfire Club - founded in the 1700s by the ancestor of Sir Franci Dashwood, a local baronet based in West Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. They thought this would give them access to dissident UK aristos who could be bought for mercenary terorist purposes.

The Hellfire Club was a sex ring will illicit gambling and alcohol peddling thrown in and used to meet in local 'stately' homes in the Chiltern Hills. The ground of Fawley Court contain a 'folly' in the grounds on the banks of the Thames, overlooking Devil's Island. This folly - like the main house, was built by Sir Christopher Wren as was the focus of dissident masonic offshoot that were eventually absorbed into the Hellfire Club. The activities of this Club are well documented and make the disgusting activities of Aleister Crowley (heroin and coke addict/paedophile and amateur satanist) seem like a vicarage tea party.

Among the documents held by the City of London police is list of all patrons of the paedophile club that the Marian Ftahers ran. Calvi was one of its key members and was involved in procuring children as young as two yars old, usually from the families of illegal immigrants in the UK who were so poor they knowingly sold their kids for sex.

The ring was eventually smashed. When the Berkshire police raided the sex dens that ran the racket they also found bodies of nealy 100 under six year olds who had been tortured and raped.

The ring subsequently re formed under tighter security, new sites, different locations etc. Many of the original perpetrators however escaped punishment. Some of the religious members fought through secret ecclesiastical court hearings to clear their names and/or initiate a cover up because of the scale and magnitude of the damage.

One such bastard is newly elevated Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, John Paul 2's personal secretary since 1981 I believe. This, despite numerous personal witness accounts of him raping chldren and the back-up forensic evidence held by the UK police.

Eventually, Cardinal Marcincus did a deal to whitewash over all of this.

And then, Ambrosiano collapsed, Calvi was murdered and the Vatican almost went bust.

Now that the missing $70 million of P2 Lodge funds has been traced to the Bahamas, the appalling story is about to hit the headlines again, just as the US Catholic Church is facing bankruotcy in many of its parishes following lawsuits from adults who were abused as children by US priests whose activities were known to their bishops and who were allowed to go unpunished.

The true extent of the P2's infiltration into US, UK, European and Asian public life is not going to make pleasant reading.

Those who act as apologists or deniers of these crimes do not need to further elabrate on their personal agendas.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

72. Monotheistic religions...

The only true intention of monotheistic religions in general was to command power over the masses. The advent of a one god system coincides with a desire of a group to rally a minority and seize power for themselves. This isn't possible in polytheism. People can choose to prefer one god over another. You can have interpreters, or priests, for each god, and all of them will inevitably say different things, commanding loyalty from different people. This is obviously not preferably to one who wishes total authority. With one god, whatever the one high priest says becomes dogmatic law, forcing all followers to unite. The difference between Christianity and Judaism? Someone decided to use this Jesus fellow as a way to rally people around him and not the traditional Jewish hierarchy. Islam? Substitute "Jesus" for "Mohammed" and "Jewish" for "Christian" and the same sentence is true. Under these pretexts, each revolutionary was able to set up their own set of laws. Each of these, not coincidentally, is a stricter set of laws than the last, having had the benefit of seeing where the last religion failed to command full authority.

Or at least that's how I piece the whole thing together. I could be wrong.

[PsychoDad]

48. I would agree...

Religion has not as often been the cause as it has been the excuse or validation... Just as Ideology has been.

War is waged by the few, with the many, for the benefit of the few. Unless you are fighting to protect your family and/or home, what does it benefit you to lose your leg, or your life?

Religion and Ideology, two abstracts often invoked to convince the common man he is dying for the greater good... when he is really dying for the greater good of the few.

[emad]

49. Religion has been an effective conduit for bankrolling war

The 20th century is a good example.

9/11 is another good example of this.

[Az]

2. Most things can be negotiated

Religious belief cannot.

The history behind the major world religions has their infrastructure in control of most of the reigns of power. The struggles are along the lines of these belief systems. It is difficult to get someone to kill another human being without getting them to believe they are somehow less than human. Belief is a great tool for this.

This does not mean that religious people support war. It simply means that uncompromising systems will clash when two meet. Add holy land into the mix and now you have magic dirt that must be fought for and is unnegotiable as well. This is the center of the fight in the middle east. Negotiations fall apart the closer they get to discussing the holy land shared by each side. To let go of the land is to let go of their beliefs. And that cannot happen.

[Muddleoftheroad]

3. You can blame everything

Anything that sets people apart can be blamed for war -- religion, money, geography, ethnicity, land, power, government, petty squabbles. Why single out religion?

[Az]

4. All these things

money, geography, ethnicity, land, power, government, petty squabbles can be negotiated. Care to negotiate your beliefs?

[Muddleoftheroad]

7. No they can't

You can't negotiate geography for instance. England is still an island nation. You can't negotiate ethnicity either. Most people won't negotiate their form of government without war, etc.

[Az]

9. There are certainly failures

in negotiating that have lead to conflict. But historically when two dogmatic authoratative systems in control of the reigns of power collide it results in a conflict or a purge if one is decidedly weaker.

I am not saying other issues cannot lead to conflict. Just that historically it the conflict has been along the lines of conflicting beliefs. As our society has advanced and put distance between the orthodox churches and the reigns of power there have been conflicts along other ideals. But you will find that one side or the other has a dogmatic authoratative system(not necissarily an actual religion) in place leading the people into the conflict.

[Muddleoftheroad]

11. You oversimplify history

You can cast history in any way you wish, but to simplify is a mistake.

The U.S. and Britain before them was at war with the Indians. It didn't have anything to do with beliefs. It was a classic battle between cultures, as are many wars.

And those that are beliefs are often governmental beliefs or nationalistic ones.

[Blue_Chill]

19. Let's take a look at several major conlicts then shall we

Civil War
WWI
WWII
Vietnam
Korea

None of the above were started by anything related to religious conflict. The above are purely political conflicts or wars of conquest.

In fact while sides may evoke God in battle they seldom enter the battle because of their Gods. Iraq for example has absolutely nothing to do with God and everything to do with US political and financial interests. No one attacked Iraq because it's an Islamic States, the sea of oil it sits on however.......

I reject the moronic notion that because a to states that fight are of different religion and both evoke their gods that this means religion is a major player in the cause of the conflict.

[Az]

28. Yes, lets look at them

First off I do not insist that it is just Religions that cause wars. There can be catestrophic failures of negotiations. But if you examine the small list (compared to the number of wars in the world throughout history) you will even find there conflicts based on absolute dogmas.

WWII. National Socialism. The absolute positions of the third reich were based on dogmatic claims of superiority. In fact Hitler himself said his was a fight for the church. Incidently the Vatican never condemned the conflict while it was going on nor did it ever excommunicate Hitler.

Vietnam/Korea. Hardline communism is a dogmatic authoratative structure. It has a history of retraining its people to see the world the way they are supposed to. It must purge any competing structure. Thus it drives out other religions and beliefs.

[Blue_Chill]

32. I disagree I see it as human nature at work

Humans do not suffer competition well. We only do so because we are forced to do so by consequence. We act in our own best interest and group up for strength in numbers.

You can see this behavior in any highschool in the nation. Humans naturally form groups and attempt to intimidate, emotionally or physically, other groups.

[Az]

33. Human nature

Contains the ability to compromise. We can negotiate things. Religions cannot. This is not to say that human nature cannot lead to war or that religious nature has to lead to war. It is just an awareness of the nature of the systems.

Sometimes greed and averice can lead to conflict. But the more people involved the more you have to be in control of their views to get them to side with your greed. Belief systems are just the thing for this. It can guide people to kill. It can guide people to kill themself. It is perhaps the most potent weapon on the planet.

In defense of religion though not all weapons are used. Some manage to restrain themself.

[Astarho]

5. Not necessarily

but religion is a great excuse. And a great way to justify it after the fact.

"Conquer that land to make me richer" doesn't motivate the troops as "God told you to conquer that country"

[Forkboy]

10. Some of them,but not all

Athiests,Agnostics and Believers are all capable of starting them.

[PVnRT]

13. A few

But, more often than not, it boils down to leaders using the language of the prevailing religion to rally the population to war.

[seemslikeadream]

22. We're going to be coming up against spiritual warfare

Pat Robertson Road to Victory 1991

War on Secular Society

"We need to find ways to win the war" Karl Rove, President Bush's political director told a gathering of the Family Research Council in March,2002. The Family Research Council is one of the most powerful lobbying organizations of the Religious Right today. Rove wasn't talking about the war on terrorism. He was talking about the war on secular society.

To understand the war on secular society, we should go to Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition. He explained the nature of the war on secularism in 1991 at a Christian Coalition rally.

"It's going to be a spiritual battle. There will be Satanic forces... We are not going to be coming up just against human beings, to beat them in elections. We're going to be coming up against spiritual warfare.

"The strategy against the American Radical Left should be the same as General Douglas MacArthur employed against the Japanese in the Pacific ..Bypass their strongholds, then surround them, isolate them, bombard them, then blast the individuals out of their power bunkers with hand to hand combat. The battle for Iwo Jima was not pleasant, but our troops won it. The battle to regain the soul of America won't be pleasant either, but we will win it."

"There is another war going on in this country. This one is far more insidious. It's one that you just can't go and attack. It's a war for the absolute sould of this country." Alabama Governor Bob Riley

"How much more forcefully can I say it? The time has come, and it is long overdue, when Christians and conservatives and all men and women who believe in the birthright of freedom must rise up and reclaim America for Jesus Christ."
"God has called us to engage the enemy in this culture war. That is our challenge today."
Rev. D James Kennedy

"Our aim," according to Pat Robertson at a banquet in 1984, "is to gain dominion over society." The path to dominion was made clear when Rovertson told the Denver Post in 1992 that his goal was to "take working control of the Republican Party."

www.theocracywatch.org

[derby378]

31. Dogma, not religion, is the problem

And by the term dogma, I'm referring to any type of dogma - political, religious, philosophical, economic, you name it.

Take modern fascism, for example. It's more or less a mutation of the Romantic movement of the 19th Century, but when folks like Hitler infused it with pseudoscience, much of it race-based, Germanic fascism morphed into a huge dogmatic monster.

Of course, we all know Karl Rove likes to remind Bush* to "stick to principle." In this case, principle appears to be dogma, at least of the economic variety.

[Az]

35. Bingo, Its dogmatic authoratative systems

Many religions do have this quality (not all). Our society has steadily moved away from these but they still have advocates within our society. Churches are still built upon the notion that they have the absolute truth. Thus their voice continues to try to bring the society back to their view. This is perfectly natural but it has consequences. And they are conflict. When such systems clash with each other it is we the people that suffer.

[SOS]

36. Since the dawn of human history

wars have been, essentially, tribal wars.
How primitive humans organize themselves gives us the uniforms of war, but not the cause.
Modern political and religious philosophies are draped over ancient greed and bloodlust to justify the slaughter.
As Joseph Campbell once said...Human history is mostly people killing each other over metaphors.

[Az]

37. People do not kill themself in the hopes of material gain

It takes belief to get a person to do that. Belief that death is just a change of address. Belief that those you are killing are not human. Belief that you are right and they are wrong.

Leaders may have reasons for their conflict beyond matters of belief. But the people cannot be lead into a battle they do not believe in. You do not form an army of children (see the childrens crusade of 1212) and march it over mountains because of sound tactical planning. It takes belief to do this.

Attempts to hold land and property with just violence have always failed. It cannot compete with belief over time.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

38. Only if people actually go to war over religious doctrines

Northern Ireland? Nope. That's about economic and political rights between two groups who happen to be different religions, the indigenous Irish and the Scotch-Irish, who were brought over from Scotland by the British. They are definitely not fighting over transubstantiation versus the real presence.

Israel/Palestine? Nope. That's about two groups trying to live on the same tiny plot of land. The Israelis are mostly secular, and the Palestinians are both Muslim and Christian.

The Crusades? Maybe. They certainly told the poor ignorant troops that they were going to "liberate Jerusalem from the infidel," but you can bet that the kings who led the Crusades had their eyes on the goodies from what was then a much more advanced civilization. In fact, they sacked some Christian cities, including Constantinople, along the way.

[Bridget Burke]

47. No.

It's often served as a good excuse, though.

[devinsgram]

63. Totally disagree.

Ever since man has kept records religion has played a great part in wars.

[LeahMira]

52. Causeless hatred starts wars...

Great start to the Christian calendar - Lent starts tomorrow

Perhaps during their penitential season the Christians can meditate and ponder alternatives to wars.

[emad]

53. Like getting busted for money laundering

or bankrolling mercenaries when things start getting uncomfortable in the truth department...

[Bridget Burke]

55. You seem to have a lot of interesting information.

Where has it been published?

[emad]

59. Since the 1970s in mainstream UK newspapers including:

The Catholic Herald, the Daily Mail, the Times, The Telegraph, the Sunday Times, The Observer, the Guardian, the Bucks Free Press, the Tablet, etc

UK press went online in late 1997 and have archived some of this material. The last time I checked, all the above papers were hoping to get their archives from 1960 to 1995 online by the end of this year but it has been a slow process.

The BBC also has TV News footage of some of the reported cases. They had a microfiche library until last year which was also supposedly transferring these archives online

[Bridget Burke]

61. As soon as there are links,

Please supply them.

[rman]

56. as in: no religion = no war?

i don't think so.

then again it's pretty obvious to me that religion is one of the tools used by the powers that be in order to pull our strings.

[x-g.o.p.er]

73. Only if water can be the source of getting people wet