Do you think religion causes war?

Misunderstanding and greed, pride, and avarice causes war. I don't think religion causes war, it's the people who are greedy, blindly arrogant and power hungry people cause wars. When you try to impose your ideas on someone else and condemn them to hell if they don't agree with you. That causes war.

Personally I think religion is a wonderful thing, so is diversity, the problem I see before me is that there is great misinterpretation and the refusal to understand and change.

I consider myself a non-denominational Christian, I believe in God and the Lord Jesus, but that doesn't mean I go around condemning Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Zoroastrians etc...

So in conclusion, the great Hamartia of our human race is that we refuse to accept others because it does not fit our agenda. And it may stem from religion but there are many other reasons.

This is as civil as I can get.

 

its a mix of political reasons, religious reasons and just plain disagreement but also its to seek out vengeance. to get even. a lot of countries seem to want to "prove" something.

its not just religion but a mix of politics and other things

 

Of course it causes war. So many wars and conflicts have been caused (or at least greatly exacerbated) by religion in the last ten thousand years, it's crazy. To say it doesn't is to show your naivety when it comes to history.

 

stupidity causes war and religion promotes stupidity. So yes it does cause war, its not the only thing that causes war.

 

it also causes peace. everything and anything is capable of causing war

 

It's a mix of both. It's mainly greed, politics and money (whether territorial gains for trade on resources, or arms or whatever), but religion is a good tool for those in charge to get people 'on-side'. Wars in Europe- territorial motivations, religion used as the excuse, same for the Middle-East.

So, no, doesn't cause it, it just gets mistreated as a good reason to kill people.

 

It's not the sole cause of war, but it seems to be an important factor in it. The crusades, 9/11, WWII (genocide of many minorities but none more than Jewish people).

 

Does not cause it but helps it happen due to disagreements or people who misunderstand their own religion. I.e Extremist are people who misunderstand their religion I am sure god does not say kill innocent people who don't believe in what you believe. Might say embrace them not kill people that he has created.

Religion is not solely the cause it is the people that are the problem always want control like manipulating religion to how they feel it should be. For example everyone thinks muslims are bad people it not muslims who are bad it the extremist that are who claim they are muslim. I know some very peaceful muslims who when they talk are very calm unlike some of the extremist.

Religion seems to be in it own war to be honest due to thing like this.

 

religion has usually functioned as an excuse for imperialism
and this scapegoating has been extremely successful, to the point where many outright deny imperialism and blame religion on everything

 

It can and has been the cause of wars, along with other reasons like greed. The Crusades were a good example of this as there were a few that wanted to gain wealth but used religion as an excuse to gain support and justify what they were doing. You could argue that the Taliban use religion as an excuse to gain support. I believe that different religions have been changed in order to justify the actions of those with power, like political leaders or the pope.

 

Religions cause wars like hammers cause houses.

 

I think religion is a possible cause for war, but in general, wars are initiated for economic reasons.

Why is religion a possible cause for war? Well, because they are inherently ideological and have the capacity to produce extremely oppressive results. I feel like this is pretty well empirically verified.

 

While religion might not be the true reason beyond the ruling class starting a war, it sure does a hell of a good job motivating the ignorant masses to actually fight the war. The average foot soldier in the Crusades probably would not have been fighting that war were it not for his fervent belief that he was doing the will of God.

 

Religion is and has been a very good excuse for countries to wage war for imperialistic/economic reasons, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been the cause for a lot of wars and conflicts. There are still some conflicts which are almost only caused by a clash of religion (India/Pakistan, persecution of Muslims by Buddists in Birma, Christians by Muslims in Indonesia, Muslims by Hindu in India, Sunni/Shia problems etc. etc. etc. etc.).

Religion has been a big drive for (over)zealous kings and queens and their subjects. The 30 years war (Massive conflict in Germany 1618-1648 which killed maybe 30% of the civilian population) might not have happened or been less nasty if there wouldn't have been a religious conflict.

The crusades are one conflict in which you can argue that religion wasn't really the sole or most important reason. Some happened entirely out of greed; The target for the fourth crusade was changed by Venetian traders from Jerusalem towards Orthodox Constantinople, thereby ending basically ending the Eastern Roman Empire. It gave a lot of loot, but enabled the muslim Turks to expand into Europe, hardly a pious result.

Some crusades happened more because of politics like the Crusade of Varna. The main objective for that crusade was stopping the agressive expansion of Ottoman Turkey into the Balkans.

Still if you would take out some of the Crusades, which is debatable, you have a lot of conflicts and wars left in which religion was the most important reason for war.

PS. aren't there spoiler tags on this forum so I could post a 'nice' incomplete list so the post would stay smaller or do I just fail finding them?

 

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^ This. Basically every violent conflict has been because of religion.
"I worship one god, and I'm right."
"I worship many gods, and you are wrong."
"LOSER!"
"DIE!!"
*wars*

 

Maybe, but i know religious freedom was the reason why people came to America.

Yes, people use religion as the base as war because they're so scared of this place known as hell, hades, or underworld which i personally think is real. They use the bible as an excuse to try to be fascist, meaning like mussolini try to impose your religion on others and those who don't either imprison or kill but out of fear for hell, when really the bible is the book of life and is meant to guide through life i.e.: Isaiah 40:31, Proverbs 26, John 3:16, and others for assurance. If you took it out of context, you'd be in hell

Look at the holocoust, they used the jewish religion as the base in order to lure Germans into supporting the gov't through terrorism, propaganda, and fear

Look at the middle ages, they tortured people for not being with the religion and kill them; isn't that against the ten commandments?!?!

But yes, wars in the middle ages were based on religion

Even South Park based a future war on Atheist names

 

Too Right!

 

Some wars. But I suspect more have been caused by greed and arrogance. Its probably also a symptom of war.