I know religion has started wars but do you think that it is mainly politicians/power people behind the scenes

Question

that use religion to start wars?

Answer 1

Yes and no. Of course there are always power-hungry people behind the scenes who are responsible for starting wars. It's just that both religion and nationalism are excellent tools for uniting large groups of people against others, and hence, they are both excellent tools for motivating "believers" or "patriots" against those of other religions or nationalities.

The only philosophies that do not make good "tribalistic" tools are those that see all humans as one and the same people, such as humanism.

In other words, it's a bit naive to say that "religions don't start wars, people do." Well yeah, people are responsible for starting all actions, whether good or evil, duh. But religions don't exist in a vacuum. It always strikes me as somewhat insincere to claim that when people do good things in the name of a religion, it's a truly "religious" (or "Christian" or "Muslim" or whatever) action, but when they do something evil in the name of that religion, it's not the fault of the religion but of the person. You can't have it both ways. Either religion motivates people to do both good and evil, or it doesn't motivate anyone to do anything.

In short, those who define good actions done in the name of a religion as "religion" and evil actions done in the name of a religion as "heresy" are simply lying to themselves about the flaws in their own religion.

Answer 2

Religion cannot start wars. Man can only start wars in the name of religion. I believe also that the motivation behind the beginning of many wars is not religion (as some would have us believe) but exactly what you stated, things like greed for power, money, etc.

Answer 3

There are as many definitions for the term religion as there are people living. Whose definition should I go by?

If a little old lady goes to church and prays to Jesus, that's religion.
If someone kills, and destroys human life, that is not religion.
Jesus warned of a time when people would kill and think that they did God a service(see new testament, John). He told the apostles that the reason they would do this is because they didn't know God at all.

Religion is not war, Murder is not religion.
We need a separation between religion and crime.

Politicians are responsible for wars. All political organizations survive on the threat of war.
Punishment of a crime committed by an individual "saddam" does not require killing any one else but the individual criminal. Killing members of entire nationalities is not punishing the criminal, but committing hundreds more crimes.

Religion itself cannot start wars. Only people can do that.
A bad idea cannot by itself kill someone. Only people acting on bad ideas do that.
If a "doctrine" is going to cause you to commit murder, that doctrine would be a heresy, and not religion at all.

Answer 4

Yes they do and just the violent nature of some people. Religion is an easy "cause" to grab at... If someone wants a war, how much support do you think they would get by saying what it was really over? I doubt highly Bush would have ANY war supporters if he admitted this war was over pride and oil.

Answer 5

Yes I do.
Consider this:

"A society is capable of surviving for thousands of years unless it is attacked from within or without by hostile forces. where such an attack occurs, the primary targets are it's religious and national gods and heroes,it's potential of leadership and the self respect and integrity of it's members.
If you look around you , you will find countless examples of these points. They scream at us every day from the newspapers and TV.
Probably the most critical point of attack on a culture is it's religious experience. Where one can destroy or undermine religious institutions then the entire fabiric of the society can be quickly subverted or brought to ruin.
For the last hundred years or so religion has been beset with relentless attack. You have been told it’s the “opiate of the masses “, that it’s unscientific, that it is primitive, in short , that it is a delusion.
The source of this kind of attack is always covert and hidden. It is promoted by a few who have a vested interest in a slave society.
Unfortunately these few rely on creating fear and insecurity in others
to forward and promote their enemy propaganda. These others feel correctly they have to defend themselves from an attack, but because the real enemy is hidden, they can be manipulated to attack what they really should be defending as they cannot see the real enemy.

The key here is that underneath all these attacks on organised religion there is one fundemental target:
The spirituality of man, your own basic spiritual nature, self respect and peace of mind." L.Ron Hubbard

Answer 6

each warfare in historic previous were began and remains starting up by cost effective causes. examine historic previous of politics or merely ask a professor who teaches politics - merely because the troy warfare is 'not led to' by love of Helene- the Iraqi warfare, global wars, the wars today - all led to by the greed to have extra money - is it a twist of destiny that the area which usa is making an attempt to triumph over is the land it truly is the nicely ideal source of petroleum! faith is and has consistently been an excuse for warfare and this is been used to cover this truth!

Answer 7

People start wars. Ideas and beliefs have no such power on their own. This is why religion in it's current form, or should I say organized and public religion should be banned.

Answer 8

organized religion was created to control the masses, politics and religion are sadly one and the same in these cases.

Answer 9

You got it right

Answer 10

of course