Religion and Conflict?

Question

Can anyone tell me of any major conflict any where in the world, that did'nt have something to do with religion or was based in religious difference?

10 hours and no conflict named yet.

Bad Buddhist, nice numbers, now validate them by listing those conflicts of nonreligious origin.

Don, WW2 was littered with religious excuses and propaganda. Not to mention the intended genocide of a entire religious system of faith.

Answer 1

Religion has just been the shield or outward excuse of conflicts that arose out of political issues. Even the Crusades were political but religious leaders on both sides used the religion of the populous to manipulate them to fight in what otherwise most of the populous politically could not have been concerned with.

Religion is merely a tool by which people strive towards spiritual goals. That said, I'm reminded of folksinger Ani DiFranco's words in a poem where she says "Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right." Religion has been a tool, but there are those who abuse it for their own political agenda to gain wealth or power for themselves. Religion becomes a weapon in their hands and also a shield to cover them from any atrocities they do in its name.

Perhaps someday such abuse of religion will no longer be able to happen because followers of religion will not be taken advantage of. Unfortunately those whom abuse religion also do it most in areas where people are illiterate or undereducated and may not necessarily know all they should about what their religion actually teaches. They learn through word of mouth and put trust in religious leaders to guide them and teach them correctly so that they can apply the tool of religion into their lives and reach the spiritual goals they desire. Such people are often the ones who are most abused. Thus literacy and education are very important in order to stop the abuse of religion by those who use it as a weapon to seek power or wealth.

Answer 2

Wars (with casualties above 100,000) since 1860: 62

Religious wars (i.e. one religion against another religion): 2

Number of wars where both sides are aggressors and one side is religious, but the religion ideology is not primary cause of war: 5

Wars where religion played no factor: 55


Deaths due to these wars:

Religious wars: 1.3 Million

One side in a 2 sided aggression war religious: 3.9 Million

Deaths due to **non-religious** wars: 175 Million

Answer 3

No, they all are about religious conflict. Even the ones about oil, still have religion at the core. Iraq has a major devision of sects...and you can't separate that issue from the oil issue.

Answer 4

Most warring nations only fight over natural resources (land, water, oil). However religion is responsible for many senseless killings. If you kill someone for their land that's at least understandable, but their religion? It's completely unnecessary. In my opinion, religion is a channel for hate and fear. Some good may have come out of it, but goodness exist in everyone, and there are other more honest ways of bringing it out.

Answer 5

there have been many conflicts based on greed and totally separate from religion. Just look how quickly certain countries will step into a conflict if their is a lot of oil involved for example

Answer 6

most conflicts in the world today are being caused by muslims...this is a sad truth....while most muslims are good people (the majority), and the religion may teach peace (although it also teaches jihad), in every country that there are muslims, there is conflict.....

you know:
-in thailand, muslim separtists (those that want an Islamic state) frequently bomb buddhist temples and kill innocents
-in phillipines, muslim separtists bombed a church and killed approx 40 people
-in russia, besides beslan (where more than 300 children were killed by muslim chechen terrorists), there is an insurgency going on with muslims killing police officers and such
-in china, they have a problem with muslim separtists in the western part of the country
-madrid train bombings
-london bombings
-israel for the past 60 years (constant killing of civilians by muslim palestinian terrorists)
-9/11
-jordan: muslims killed more than 60 palestinians at a wedding
-egypt: frequent bombing of tourists and tourist hot spots
-turkey: frequent bombing of tourists
-bali/indonesia: ditto
-iraq: shiite and sunni civil war
-india/pakistan: back and forth conflict between hindus and muslims

Answer 7

I very much doubt anyone could! & the incongruity of what
religion is SUPPOSED to be, & the heinous crimes in its
name would be amusing if not so tragic. I suspect it will
always be like this--the human condition being what it is.
The hatred of DIFFERENCES is awesome; we humans are
so unevolved. I'll be curious about what answers you get.

Answer 8

Second World War.
Adolph did not give a tinkers damn about religion.

He wanted LAND! ""Lebensraum""

the Jews were just a way of getting people ""on side"".

Answer 9

You might be able to find one if you had a large enough computer.

Answer 10

Hmm...good question!