Religion causes war?

Question

There have been horrible atrocities commited by evil men in the name of God, undoubtedly. But what I find mind boggling is how selective we can be with our memories. Has the world forgotten the HUGE benefical impacts organized religion has had on the world. The development of empires, the rescue of legions of impoverished and diseased people, the asylum granted to political refugees throughout history. Not to mention the heavy influence in the development and sustinence of the American and British nations and their rise to power. The work of missionaries all over the globe, going into the most remote areas of the world bringing foods, supplies and medicine to the needy. Wars which we celebrate like the American Revolution and WWII were all lead by the moral and ethical arm of organized religion. Need I go on? The good most certainly out weighs the bad. Do the math.

My point is that there have been centuries of good deeds by noble men and women in the name of religion, who did what they did because they felt that god compelled them to do so.

There is good and evil in men. Men choose who to follow. Christianity teaches forgiveness, love, PEACE and understanding. New Testament

Thanks for all of your answers, but what you've all stated is what we already know. And that is that there are people in this world who choose to perform good (constructive) acts and people who choose to perform evil (destructive) acts. The "man" chooses his destiny and it is not religion which makes a man good or evil, its the man.
And so, it is not Religion which causes war, it is the evil in MEN.

Oh, and my apologies. I was speaking in reference to Christianity and no other religion. I was too vague on that point.

Answer 1

The very worst wars.

Let us look at just one organisation- the Catholic Church.

Hundreds of millions of lives have been lost because of the Popes and the church. See the Almanac of Evil.
http://one-faith-of-god.org/final_testament/end_of_darkness/evil/evil_0120.htm

Lets look at some of the true "highlights" of the Vatican and Popes:

+++Crusades+++

The Crusades started earlier than the inquisition.

(1095 CE) Pope Urban II did publish a Papal Bull granting general amnesty for all criminals, robbers and thieves to join an army to conquer the Muslim lands and secure Jerusalem. That Pope Urban in releasing this new law did say to the assembled mass of criminals: “Let those who have hitherto been robbers now become soldiers.”

(1096-1099) That approximately ten million (10,000,000) innocent men, women and especially children are murdered and their property stolen by the army of Peter the Hermit, priests and peasants under the legal approval of Pope “Blessed” Urban II. That the wholesale slaughter of innocent people for nothing more than greed included Belgrade (1096), the chief city of Orthodox Church after Constantinople, Yugoslavia (1096), Turkey, Syria, Antioch (1098), and Palestine.

(1099): That Christian Knights, priests and members of the first crusade including freed criminals did slaughter every single man, woman, child and animal in Jerusalem, sparing not one soul upon the specific and clear orders and approval of Pope “Blessed” Urban II. That the death toll, from this clearly church sanctioned act was at least 150,000 to 200,000 people, of which at least 60,000 were Jewish.

(1146 CE) That upon the Papal Bull authorizing the Second Crusade by Pope Eugenius III on Muslims at Edessa; St Bernard of Clairvaux did declare: "The Christian glories in the death of the pagan because thereby Christ himself is glorified". Around 300,000 are murdered.

(1187-92) That Pope Gregory VIII did authorize through a Papal Bull the Third Crusade and did declares holy war on Muslims in Jerusalem as well as on pagans Cathars and Jews in Europe and England. As a result, approximately one million (1,000,000) lives were lost as a direct result and decisions of the Pope and Roman Catholic Church.

(1191) That Richard the Lion Heart did murder 3000 men, women and children outside Acre during third crusade. That the King of England did order the stomachs of these innocent people to be cut open in search for swallowed gems.

(1212) That Pope Innocent III did devise a terrible and evil strategy by issuing a Papal Bull authorizing children to launch their own crusade against the Muslims. Over the over 200,000 children that are released by the parents, a third die from the journey, a third are taken by the Catholic Church for ritual satanic sacrifices and the remainder are sold to slave traders for tremendous profits. Because the Papal Bull absolves the Catholic Church from all liability, neither the parents, nor sovereign nations can say or do a thing upon this evil act.


+++Inquisitions+++

(1181) That Pope Lucius III did establish procedures for Inquisitions as well as the conduct of torture.

(1198-1216) That Pope Innocent III did promote the Inquisition throughout Europe causing the murder of over one million (1,000,000) innocent people through terrible torture and public human sacrifice aimed at promoting the principles of Satanism.

(1198) That Pope Innocent III did issue a Papal Bull declaring "anyone who attempts to construe a personal view of God which conflicts with church dogma must be burned without pity".

(1227-41) That Pope Gregory IX did establish the first of three Holy Inquisitions in 1232 using the false texts of witchcraft created by his predecessor Pope Honorius III as false evidence of the existence of an alternate “evil” to the Vatican. Approximately 650,000 are burned alive through public satanic rituals during his Papacy.

(1231) That Pope Gregory IX introduces for the first time in human history the twisted and unjust notion of "guilty until proven innocent" replacing the ancient common law notion of "innocent until proven guilty" which had existed for over 6,000 years. In addition, removes the right to counsel, the right to hear charges against an accused, the identity of the witnesses making the accusation and notification to family and/or friends that a person has been arrested by the inquisition. This model forms the basis of the Catholic model of the Gestapo interrogation.

+++What would Jesus Think?+++

Jesus founded the Nazarenes also known as the gnostics.
http://one-faith-of-god.org/new_testament/apocrypha/nazarenes/nazarenes_0010.htm

The Vatican has known for almost 2000 years that it was Paul of Tarsus, not Jesus who founded christianity.
http://one-faith-of-god.org/new_testament/apocrypha/founders_christianity/founders_christianity_0010.htm

+ The Catholic Church has never been the legitimate body representing Jesus. It is an imposter, a fraud.

+ In spite of the overwhelming evidence of corruption, of morally bankrupt behaviour, of evil, many people continue to defend such action, to the point of attacking those who dare to raise it.

+ Until good people are prepared to take a stand against such evil and the wars it creates will continue to thrive.

Answer 2

You are arguing this point from the flawed perspective that absolute good and absolute evil exist, and that you know what they are. There is only one absolute in the entire universe: CHANGE. Everything and every thing is constantly changing, moving, adapting, altering, including ideas, laws, everything. Even the law of relativity, and the law of gravity, and the law of the unconditional love of the universe change within themself, because these are the means by which the law of change is created, maintained, and experienced.

The war between GOOD and EVIL is created, caused, experienced, and controlled entirely by your mind, your perception, and your reaction to the stimulus of your environment. Physical circumstances are only an infinitismally small component of the definition of a war between any opposing forces, yet the location, how many died, who they were, and other observable information is what is focused on when talking about battles, and the mindsets and motivations of the participants are almost entirely ignored.

Now let me ask you a question: If you were offered food that you believed had heaps of positive healthy elements and ingredients, but you also believed it contained many unhealthy ingredients, which may cause death or cancer or some other disease, and finally you believed that the good outweighed the bad, would you eat it, or choose the meal that was also offered to you that was all good, or the one that was all bad, or the one that made no difference to how healthy you were, or simply go hungry?
I ask this because there are so many choices available to people. You can choose any of a number of organised religions, or go spiritual but not religious, or go anti-religious, or athiest, or go with scientology, or raw scientific fact, or simply believe whatever the hell you want to believe and change it whenever something better comes along. Truly weighing up the positive and negative attributes of each option and choosing based on what is portrayed, what is real, and what is experiencable, is possibly the most effective method of establishing a healthy mental and/or spiritual state of being human. Remember, your idea of you is potentially very fluid, and, like everything, subject to change. Go with the flow, and express yourself with gusto and joy!

Peace be with you!

Answer 3

For some reason atheists have a hard time admitting that Russia and communist China banded together and slew millions of their own people. This under the official banner of atheism. Maybe they fear we are calling all atheists communists. No. But the point remains in a relatively short blip in history. They have amassed an impressive murderous record. What people don't want to look at is most wars are mostly about grabbing what belongs to someone else and taking it for yourself.Some wrongly misuse religion in order to try and motivate a war they would otherwise not be interested in fighting.

Answer 4

No, Atheists and secular humanists consistently make the claim that religion is the #1 cause of violence and war throughout the history of mankind. One of hatetheism's key cheerleaders, Sam Harris, says in his book The End of Faith that faith and religion are “the most prolific source of violence in our history.”1

While there’s no denying that campaigns such as the Crusades and the Thirty Years’ War foundationally rested on religious ideology, it is simply incorrect to assert that religion has been the primary cause of war. Moreover, although there’s also no disagreement that radical Islam was the spirit behind 9/11, it is a fallacy to say that all faiths contribute equally where religiously-motivated violence and warfare are concerned.

An interesting source of truth on the matter is Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars, which chronicles some 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history. Of those wars, the authors categorize 123 as being religious in nature,2 which is an astonishingly low 6.98% of all wars. However, when one subtracts out those waged in the name of Islam (66), the percentage is cut by more than half to 3.23%.

That means that all faiths combined – minus Islam – have caused less than 4% of all of humanity’s wars and violent conflicts. Further, they played no motivating role in the major wars that have resulted in the most loss of life.

Kind of puts a serious dent into Harris’ argument, doesn’t it?

The truth is, non-religious motivations and naturalistic philosophies bear the blame for nearly all of humankind’s wars. Lives lost during religious conflict pales in comparison to those experienced during the regimes who wanted nothing to do with the idea of God – something showcased in R. J. Rummel’s work Lethal Politics and Death by Government:

Non-Religious Dictator Lives Lost

Joseph Stalin - 42,672,000
Mao Zedong - 37,828,000
Adolf Hitler - 20,946,000
Chiang Kai-shek - 10,214,000
Vladimir Lenin - 4,017,000
Hideki Tojo - 3,990,000
Pol Pot - 2,397,0003
Rummel says: “Almost 170 million men, women and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed or killed in any other of a myriad of ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead could conceivably be nearly 360 million people. It is though our species has been devastated by a modern Black Plague. And indeed it has, but a plague of Power, not germs.”4

The historical evidence is quite clear: Religion is not the #1 cause of war.

If religion can’t be blamed for most wars and violence, then what is the primary cause? The same thing that triggers all crime, cruelty, loss of life, and other such things. Jesus provides the answer very clearly: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man” (Mark 7:21–23).

James (naturally) agrees with Christ when he says: “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel” (James 4:1–2).

In the end, the evidence shows that the atheists are quite wrong about the wars they claim to so desperately despise. Sin is the #1 cause of war and violence, not religion, and certainly not Christianity.

https://carm.org/religion-cause-war

Answer 5

You ask people to do the math, but it seems that you are not so good at arithmetic. You also are extremely selective in what you care about, and you have a very different take on the results. You think that missionary work was a good thing for bringing food, but it was also an attempt to take over countries. Look at Japan's history.

Answer 6

"The development of empires"

Oh, yeah. That was a great good. Ask any of the conquered peoples how much they appreciated that. While you are doing that, how about putting an end to the centuries of unrest caused by those little misadventures?

"The work of missionaries all over the globe, going into the most remote areas of the world bringing foods, supplies and medicine to the needy"

Let's not forget destroying their cultures and societies as well as spreading plague and smallpox to their people.

You are so full of yourself it is sickening.

Answer 7

Wars have had many causes. Religion is just one of the more popular ones.

BTW half of what you mention as the "good" done in the name of religion was actually very destructive to the native cultures that were subjected to it.

Answer 8

Something is wrong with a God Concept that has taken over 100 million lives from religion/sectarian violence and encourages the followers to ignore it.

Answer 9

Hello and Jesus Christ the second member of The Godhead Himself said in Matthew 24:6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all [these things] must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
read all of Matt, 24 and 25, it sounds like your reading the morining news paper, find out more, your in a war now God is saying your His and satan is saying your his and ONLY YOU can decide which it will be, there is a war and its over YOU, find out more free bible lessons www.amazingfacts.org talk to me also [e-mail] via email NOT messanger.

Answer 10

The mathematics? apparently there are a lot of variables left out of your formula.

I see NO benefits in Christianity's past. They have destroyed ancient cultures, reduced spiritual growth en masse by putting so many barriers in place and spreading it so far, affecting political and social structures with their ignorant paradigm, corroded illumination.

Lead, do not follow. If you lie in wait for a leader, you rot.

Answer 11

the 'religion causes war' accusation is one of the most overused bits of hyperbole and plain old bull droppings that the atheists like to trot out,,,they even make up 'statistics' to back up their claim...however, they seem to ignore the fact that the bloodiest conflicts in history had nothing to do with religion...and COMPLETELY ignore the fact that the greatest number of deaths were caused by the policies of the 2 major 'religion-free' nations-the USSR and communist China...between them they have killed tens of millions...i'd say that people of faith have done far more good than harm in this world...