Do you truly believe if there was no religon...?

Question

...there would be no wars? That seems like a pretty ignorant statement. War has always been about power, and greed. If there was no religon, we would just find something else to fight about. Possibly land, minerals, supplies, people, ect.

Answer 1

It's human nature to have war and fight each other. Religion just adds fuel to the fire :)

Answer 2

Wars have always been about land, minerals, supplies, people, etc. Very very few wars have ever been fought purely because for religious reasons.

Religion has been used as an excuse. Religion has been used as a recruiting tool. Religion has been used to hide the truth and suppress dissent.

If there were no religion, Bin Laden would have a hard time persuading others to die for his cause. The Arabs and Israelis would have a much better chance of sitting down and brokering a peace. The 'troubles' in Northern Ireland would have ended decades before they did.

Without religion the true reasons for wars would be obvious to all, to support or condemn as they saw fit.

Answer 3

People are very sensitive and have strong feelings about their spirituality and religion. I think this is what causes problems, that people let their strong personal feelings get in the way of logic and what's best for the masses. I don't see religion being at fault, it is merely a concept. Humans are at fault for not seeing things objectively and having an open mind. So yes, war would still exist, people would just find something else to be close minded and violent about...they already have.

Answer 4

Religion is a cover up for nationalism and a basis for 21st century wars because people realized that nations just wanted to kill its citizens to make the rich people richer. Religion covers up the truth, all wars are for some resource or gain, religion does not exist so it makes no difference. If there was no religion there would be more law breaking and possibly less wars but so much chaos internally it would be worse off. I doubt human intelligence will reach an adequate level for people to realize there is no purpose to survival it is just a mechanism set in our brains by our genes.
Wars will always exist when colonies exist, where they don't there will be chaos.
War will lack the cover up and enthusiam if there was no religious reason, the new cover up for religion is "terrorism" or potential threat to one's life which covers up the basis of getting oil from the middle east.

Answer 5

Why is there War ?
You are all descended from people who avoided getting killed before they had children. This is kind of obvious, but it is the basis of the theory of evolution.
Since humans are social animals, and don't tend to survive too well on their own, most people are also members of societies which have managed to survive without being destroyed.

A mind game
Imagine two groups of people. One group is always fighting and killing each other. The other group is more co-operative and works together to build things, harvest crops and so on. You can see that the group that is always fighting won't be able to build anything much more complex than one person can do on their own. No great irrigation schemes, no granaries, no schools. In any kind of natural disaster like a famine or earthquake they will be less likely to survive than the group who cooperates.
This is why most societies have laws and customs forbidding murder and killing by their members.

Now imagine two co-operative groups. One is peaceful, and the other goes to war. If they meet, the warlike group will kill the peaceful group or enslave them. So the warlike group will have children and the peaceful group will not. A peaceful group that runs away will also survive, as long as there is somewhere for them to run to. So evolution will tend to favour those societies that can co-operate and do not kill their own members, but can go to war and win over other groups.

Bigger is better
Societies which combine both these techniques do even better. A group which has a small, highly trained army, but most of whose members are farmers, builders and artisans, will do better than groups where all the members fight, but are not properly trained. The Romans were able to conquer most of the people of Europe, and had time to build roads, bridges and buildings that still stand today, as well as create great works of art and literature.
Societies where most of the fighting is done by teenagers and unmarried men, such as is common in the West today, are able to win wars and preserve their culture despite terrible losses among the soldiers, such as occurred in the First and Second World Wars.

Avoiding War
To survive, it is not necessary to fight (although those that do tend to grow by conquest), but just to be able to defend the society from attack. The Swiss have avoided fighting in the World Wars by refusing to take sides, and also by being ready to fight. All the men are trained to fight, and they have stockpiles of weapons everywhere. Planes and tanks are hidden in secret places in the mountains like in some TV adventure series, and all the cities have bomb shelters. No-one will attack them because it is too difficult, and they have nothing an enemy wants badly enough.
Need there be War?
If our society expands to cover the whole world, then we will have no enemies, and all those who fight and kill will be criminals (unless aliens from another star system attack us).
Unfortunately, things are not so simple and society is too complex. A person may be a hero to one group and a criminal or terrorist to another, even though both groups are part of the same society. In the past, big empires have always split apart, or become weak so that an enemy from outside can defeat them.

Do you truly believe if there was no religon...?
...there would be no wars?

No I do not believe if there was no religon...?
...there would be no wars

Answer 6

if you look at most of the wars, they're not about religion. they're about power!
and if anyone does say it's for religion, then they're just trying to create a diversion.

i think if everyone truly followed the beliefs of their religions, there would be no wars, i dont see in any book that says go kill everyone that's not the same as you. religons promote peace, and it's peace that makes people accept religion in the first place.
also, i think we should all try to learn about the other existing religions to be able to maintain a positive relationship (unlike all the ignorance and biased media that we have today) and a great future for our children.

Answer 7

War is a word used to describe the natural struggle at the human level. Animals fight over territory and resources. People fight over the same things. The reason it seems like religion is the basis for wars is that traditionally people have divided themselves based on their religious beliefs. If there was no religion, people would still divide themselves into groups and there would still be the natural struggle for resources and it would probably still be called war.

Answer 8

Of course not. Wars that I know of are not about religion but are about greed, power, status, who is bigger and stronger and on and on. War would still exist even without religion, I believe.

Answer 9

I know greed will always be a motivation for war but no religion will mean a lot less war.

Answer 10

No idea, it might help somewhat by removing one of the rote excuses for national agression, but I guess people who want war would just find a new one; there's plenty to choose from.

Answer 11

I don't think any atheist has ever said that with a straight face. Of course there would still be wars. Without religion there would have been fewer wars. Face it a good many of them have started over theology differences.