What "wars" have been caused by religion?

Question

I've heard loads of people blame religion for wars, especially Christianity. And granted there have been a few.

Here's my drill: how many "wars" can you name that are religious-based and how many can you name that are not religious-based?? Then, after we sum it all up--can we truly put blame where it belongs?

Answer 1

Religious: The Crusades

Non-religious:

The American Revolution

The French Revolution

The US Civil War

World War I

World War II

Answer 2

Wars Caused By Religion

Answer 3

Wars Over Religion

Answer 4

Many people have an incorrect idea about the crusades. Whereas atrocities were committed on both sides, this was not simply an example of Christian aggression against an innocent people group. In fact the first crusade was organized in order to reclaim land that had been captured by the Ottoman Turks. The Byzantine Empire was unable to recover territory lost during the initial Muslim conquests under the expansionist Rashidun and Umayyad caliphs in the Arab–Byzantine Wars and the Byzantine–Seljuq Wars; these conquests culminated in the loss of fertile farmlands and vast grazing areas of Anatolia in 1071, after a sound victory by the occupying armies of Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert. Urban II sought to reunite the Christian church under his leadership by providing Emperor Alexios I with military support.

Several hundred thousand Roman Catholic Christians became crusaders by taking a public vow and receiving plenary indulgences from the church. These crusaders were Christians from all over Western Europe under feudal rather than unified command, and the politics were often complicated to the point of intra-faith competition leading to alliances between combatants of different faiths against their coreligionists, such as the Christian alliance with the Islamic Sultanate of Rûm during the Fifth Crusade.

Answer 5

The religions of Christendom, at least, have a sacred precept available to them that could have helped them avoid the guilt associated with warfare. Jesus stated that his followers would be “no part of the world.” (John 15:19; 17:16) Had Christendom’s religions lived by those words, they would not have united themselves with political powers, approving of and blessing armies and war.
Unfortunately Christendom and there leaders have not learned war no more. But who does?

Answer 6

The wars that built many of the early empires weren't religious. These empires themselves were religiously tolerant. The wars were fought for control and wealth. Some of these are the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans and the Mongols under Genghis Khan. These people had their religions but religion wasn't the cause of their conquests. Ancient China was at one time divided into several smaller territories that were unified in a series of wars that weren't religiously motivated. The expansion of Russia under Ivan the Terrible started off as an effort to rid his country of the Tartars. The Napoleonic Wars weren't fought over religion and neither was WWI. Some of you are arguing that WWII was fought over religion but Hitler himself didn't seem especially religious. Himmler was into some strange, made up Nordic religion but it seems to me that the Nazis were motivated by vengeance and greed. Germany was humiliated by the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles.

Answer 7

Quite a few wars have sprouted from people having different interpretations of religion. My answer is pretty much that as long as there are people with differences, religious or not, there will be war and murder.

Answer 8

RE:
What "wars" have been caused by religion?
I've heard loads of people blame religion for wars, especially Christianity. And granted there have been a few.

Here's my drill: how many "wars" can you name that are religious-based and how many can you name that are not religious-based?? Then, after we sum it all up--can...

Answer 9

Japan was merely means for the US to enter into WWII without provocation. There's a reason history books call Pearl harbor the waking of the sleeping giant. WWII had been in full swing for years before. Hitler blaming European problems on the Jews, Gypsies, and Roman Catholics of the world is a religious-based reason.

Answer 10

The first and second Crusades were both about religion. The 100 years war and the War of the Roses were both deeply rooted in religion. Protestants and Catholics have been involved in armed conflicts since the middle ages and have yet to cease. The conflict in the Balkans,the Armenian massacre are all religious based.The "non-religious" conflicts are probably too numerous to list. You have a heck of a task ahead of you.