If Religion were eradicated would there still be wars?

Question

Would racism become more prevelant? People have a need to find a unique identity. SOmething to differentiate them from every other person in the world. Would religious wars turn into race wars? If we were all equals what conflict would exist? Would world peace be the result? (Long winded question sorry)

Answer 1

Yes, there would still be wars but there would be fewer of them, no doubt. Think of the fighting you could end today if religion evaporated: there would have been no 9/11, so Afghanistan and Iraq would be out. There would be no sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq, Iran or Pakistan. There would be no killing at the Kashmir border between Pakistani Muslims and Hindu Indians. And of course, the constant fighting between Israel and the Palestinians.

That would still leave a fair amount of killing going on for other reasons (but NOT atheism, btw. No one kills in the name of Bertrand Russel). But, I'd say eliminating religion would wipe out well more than half of the carnage.

"You will always have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But, for good people to do evil things, that takes religion," Stephen Weinberg, Nobel-prize winning physicist/cosmologist

Answer 2

It is the will to eliminate religions that leads to incessant wars.
In the beginning, Moses, Christ, Muhammad...had not many believers, people in Their times already used all brutal means to destroy them. And they survived thanks to the divine protection of the One True God.
Some time later, their religions had some larger following, they seek survival based on the legitimate rights of self-defense. And for this fighting back, they have been accused of making wars.
In the recent history of mankind, the Baha'is suffer the same fortune of religious people in previous millennia, although they never fight back and patiently practice the divine lesson of sefless love. So, until when will people look into the matter with fair eyes? Please read the news concerning religious discrimination in Egypt now (December 20, 2006)!

Answer 3

people put themselves under a religious symbol as an excuse to make war. they use a good thing, to do bad things. this is very common and always has been. the people who are the financial helpers of the major religions are not religious themselves. they are there for power. if they eradicated religion, the same people that donate billions to the muslim and christian faiths would find another outlet to hide under as an excuse to make wars. as we speak, non christian organizations and non muslim organizations run both of those religions. they got into it for power, and the churches needed money. the soviet union and the nazis also eradicated religion, because within a closed totalitarian government society, belief in god is considered a threat to the government hiearchy, because they were considered gods, and got all the fruits of the working mans labor. i can go on and on and on and on.

Answer 4

Hell yeah! And there would be very little moral restraint. The strong countries could just walk over the weak and take resources. People are selfish with or without God. Wanna try living in your city without a police force for a month...? Religion is playing that role on our planet at the moment. Despite the appearance that most wars are about religion they are really about greed.

Answer 5

First, pure religion and undefiled before God is: to visit the widows and fatherless in their affliction. You shall find that in the written word of God; which is our road map, if one may say, to life.

Now about wars. When wars stop, then Jesus Christ would have returned and, the new heaven and new earth would come and that shall be true peace on earth. That is and was always the master plan; and shall be the beginning of the beginning of the end that shall be. 1+1+1=1.

Answer 6

Yes, there would still be wars. Peace will not come until near the very end.

We are all different and unique, that is the beauty of people. We come together and make believe that we are all the same and everyone is equal and look what happened/happens. Look at history. We are not all the same, nor should we desire to be the same. We are not all equal, nor should we desire to be equal. We are different and that is our strength.

Answer 7

Wars are not caused by religion or race, but by greed and resentment. Note the strife in Africa between people of the same race.

Answer 8

You don't understand. Religion is merely just a condition upon the mind that some use as an outlet to express their baser animal natures. There is a saying, many who walk in the form of man aren't man, but they are as animals. Mankind's baser nature is like an animal, there will always be wars. Mankind is territorial by nature.

Answer 9

We are all one in Christ, we are all children of God. There was Communism that tried to make us all the same, and what happened there? It is not Religion that start the wars it is the people, men start wars. Why blame God or Religion for what sinful men do, by their free will, they choose war instead of Peace, and are unable to stop wars.

Answer 10

And among the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh is, that religious, racial, political, economic and patriotic prejudices destroy the edifice of humanity. As long as these prejudices prevail, the world of humanity will not have rest. For a period of 6,000 years history informs us about the world of humanity. During these 6,000 years the world of humanity has not been free from war, strife, murder and bloodthirstiness. In every period war has been waged in one country or another and that war was due to either religious prejudice, racial prejudice, political prejudice or patriotic prejudice. It has therefore been ascertained and proved that all prejudices are destructive of the human edifice. As long as these prejudices persist, the struggle for existence must remain dominant, and bloodthirstiness and rapacity continue. Therefore, even as was the case in the past, the world of humanity cannot be saved from the darkness of nature and cannot attain illumination except through the abandonment of prejudices and the acquisition of the morals of the Kingdom.

If this prejudice and enmity are on account of religion (consider that), religion should be the cause of fellowship, otherwise it is fruitless. And if this prejudice be the prejudice of nationality (consider that) all mankind are of one nation; all have sprung from the tree of Adam, and Adam is the root of the tree. That  287  tree is one and all these nations are like branches, while the individuals of humanity are like leaves, blossoms and fruits thereof. Then the establishment of various nations and the consequent shedding of blood and destruction of the edifice of humanity result from human ignorance and selfish motives.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith - Abdu'l-Baha Section, p. 286)

O NOBLE friends and seekers for the Kingdom of God! About sixty years ago in the time when the fire of war was blazing among the nations of the world, and bloodshed was considered an honour to mankind; in a time when the carnage of thousands stained the earth; when children were rendered fatherless; when fathers were without sons and mothers were spent with weeping; when the darkness of inter-racial hatred and animosity seemed to envelope mankind and blot out the divine light; when the wafting of the holy breath of God seemed to be cut off -- in that time Bahá'u'lláh rose like a shining star from the  37  horizon of Persia, inspired with the message of Peace and of Brotherhood among men.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Abdu'l-Baha in London, p. 36)

The common interest is complete equality; justice and equality amongst mankind are amongst the chief promoters of empire and the principal means to the extension of the skirt of conquest.

(Abdu'l-Baha, A Traveller's Narrative, p. 87)

"In the place of Behje', or Delight, just outside the fortress of Acca, on the Syrian Coast, there died, a few months since, a famous Persian sage named BAHA'O'LLAH -- the Glory of God.

"Three years ago he was visited by a Cambridge scholar to whom he uttered sentiments so noble, so Christ-like that we repeat them as our closing words -- 'We desire but the good of the world and the happiness of the nations -- that all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that all bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease and differences of race be annulled -- and so it shall be; these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away and the most great peace shall come. Is not this that which Christ foretold? Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind.'"

(Abdu'l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, p. 10)