Most wars are caused by religious people?

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Hi,

My friend tends to believe “Most wars are caused by religious people.” I don’t believe this is true, but the opposite. Can you please provide me a link to some sound factual information on this subject?

Thank you!

I saw this on the forum:
Old Dec 11, '10, 4:52 am
ConfusedTim ConfusedTim is offline
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Default Atheists Please Note: Religion is NOT the Cause of Most Wars
Every now and then an atheist will posit the suggestion that religion is the cause of most wars. Well actually this is not the case. In fact the Encyclopedia of War (reference below) suggests that religion can be blamed as the cause of 6% of all wars. If you then look at the fact that Islam has been involved in half that number you soon realise that all non Islamic religions can be accused of causing 3% of wars.
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Even when religion is cited as the cause of war e.g. in Ireland between Catholics and Protestants you find that the real reason is often something else. In the case of Ireland the root cause of the war was that one section of the population had more rites than the other.
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Reference:
Phillips, Charles and Alan Axelrod. Encyclopedia of Wars. New York: Facts on File, 2005
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Old Dec 11, '10, 4:59 am
benidict benidict is offline
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Default Re: Atheists Please Note: Religion is NOT the Cause of Most Wars
and let us not forget. that countries with a policy of atheism, have killed more people in 1 century than all religious conflicts and wars combined throughout history…soviet union, china, north korea…the killing fields of cambodia, brought to you courtesy of pol pot. etc. etc. etc. Peace
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The 20th century was the deadliest in world history. Most of the names we associate with devastation: Marx, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Pol Pot were all pretty decidedly atheistic and accounted for about 160 million deaths.

The argument your friend put out is common because it seems easy pickings, but is patently not true.

Good for you on engaging others in the faith!
 
Next time one of your anti-religion friends start to fight or argue, ask, “Now which one of you is the religious one?”

🙂
 
Just off the top of my head, all these wars were fought for other reasons:

Gulf War
Vietnam War
Korean War
World War 2
World War 1
American Civil War
Spanish Am War
Mexican Am War
War of 1812
Revolutionary War
Seven Yrs War (French and Indian War)
Italian Risorigimento
Wars of German Unification under Bismark
Franco-Prussian War
English Civil War
Spanish Civil War
War of Spanish Succession (Queen Anne’s War)
War of Austrian Succession (King George’s War)
Napoleonic Wars
Cortez’s conquest of the Aztec Empire
Pizarro’s conquest of the Inca Empire
Wars of Aztec and Inca conquest in Pre-Columbian Meso-America
Most of the Warfare in the Middle Ages was fought between co-coreligionists over succession not religion
Roman Conquests (many, many wars)
Alexander’s Conquests
Greek wars between the various city-states
Greek wars against Persia
And that’s just in the West.

Now compare that to wars fought for Religion
Crusades
Wars of Religion 1524-1648
War between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland

Invite your friend to add to the list. Again these are only wars in the west and only off the top of my head.

You’ll also note that more people died (by far) in wars waged for reasons other than religion.
 
PietroPaolo said:
Just off the top of my head, all these wars were fought for other reasons:

Gulf War
Vietnam War
Korean War
World War 2
World War 1
American Civil War
Spanish Am War
Mexican Am War
War of 1812
Revolutionary War
Seven Yrs War (French and Indian War)
Italian Risorigimento
Wars of German Unification under Bismark
Franco-Prussian War
English Civil War
Spanish Civil War
War of Spanish Succession (Queen Anne’s War)
War of Austrian Succession (King George’s War)
Napoleonic Wars
Cortez’s conquest of the Aztec Empire
Pizarro’s conquest of the Inca Empire
Wars of Aztec and Inca conquest in Pre-Columbian Meso-America
Most of the Warfare in the Middle Ages was fought between co-coreligionists over succession not religion
Roman Conquests (many, many wars)
Alexander’s Conquests
Greek wars between the various city-states
Greek wars against Persia
And that’s just in the West.

Now compare that to wars fought for Religion
Crusades
Wars of Religion 1524-1648
War between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland

Invite your friend to add to the list. Again these are only wars in the west and only off the top of my head.

You’ll also note that more people died (by far) in wars waged for reasons other than religion.
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^^ this is great. Atheist love to throw that argument. All you need to do is go war by war and you will see that the reason why all wars were caused is because humans stupid idea to conquer the world. The fact that they claim a religion is irrelevant because the real objective of the war is conquering another land. In fact, even the crusades if you really look at its origin, it was because of religion. The crusades started because the Tomas empire again in their desire ti conquer the world was attacking and brutally destroying Greece, holy land and its surrounding, so the crusades started to fight against the Tomas empire. While they wanted to protect holy sites the real reason behind it was the tomas’s desire to conquer the world, and the same goes for every single war you can think of.
 
ChurchSoldier said:
The 20th century was the deadliest in world history. Most of the names we associate with devastation: Marx, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Pol Pot were all pretty decidedly atheistic and accounted for about 160 million deaths.

The argument your friend put out is common because it seems easy pickings, but is patently not true.

Good for you on engaging others in the faith!
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You beat me to it. These individuals were indeed theists and caused a lot of death and blood shed.
 
Punch your “friend” in the throat and say “I’m sorry, what was your question again?”

Re-direct stupid thinking with violence. My religion tells me (and all peoples) to swear-off this kind of thinking, but I want to be the last one.
 
AnneElizabeth said:
Next time one of your anti-religion friends start to fight or argue, ask, “Now which one of you is the religious one?”

🙂
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… I meant to say,

Next time one of your anti-religious friends fight amongst themselves and argue…

(I couldn’t edit it for some reason) Just wanted to make that clear.
 
We must not deny that many people who participated in wars (WWI,WII, Vietnam, etc) were religious people. However, when 80-90% of a population identifies as religious, you really cant expect anything different. The question of how peaceful a 80-90% Atheistic population has never had any practical application.
 
relstudent said:
We must not deny that many people who participated in wars (WWI,WII, Vietnam, etc) were religious people. However, when 80-90% of a population identifies as religious, you really cant expect anything different. The question of how peaceful a 80-90% Atheistic population has never had any practical application.
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Most people participating in a war being religious has nothing to do with whether the war was fought because of religion. 100% of people who fought in wars drink water, that doesn’t mean 100% of wars are fought over water.
 
PietroPaolo said:
Most people participating in a war being religious has nothing to do with whether the war was fought because of religion. 100% of people who fought in wars drink water, that doesn’t mean 100% of wars are fought over water.
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But to an atheist, the fact that religious people fought in the war may be evidence to support their view. Properly understanding the distinction (as you pointed out) may help the op explain it to your friend.
 
GodHeals said:
My friend tends to believe “Most wars are caused by religious people.” I don’t believe this is true, but the opposite. Can you please provide me a link to some sound factual information on this subject?
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Given that the majority of people are religious then the statement, as written, is true, but not very useful. Somebody had to start a war, and it is likely that the somebody was religious.

A better question would be about wars that are started for religious reasons.

Another poster mentioned the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. The people who started that war were overwhelmingly Christian. The war itself was started for political, not religious, reasons.

rossum
 
Wars tend to get started by people who really, really know what ’the answer’ is.
 
Kaninchen said:
Wars tend to get started by people who really, really know what ’the answer’ is.
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Just sayin’, but sometimes they do. Not saying its ok to start a war about it though, but people have a duty to speak up, no?
 
You do hear this claim a lot. It’s an understandable one when you comprehend some of their underlying assumptions. Most atheists I’ve known tend to have a remarkably optimistic view of human nature and human potential. (Possibly because the ones that lack that optimism tend to be depressed and even suicidal!)

This is the real source of their problem! If one NEEDS to believe that humanity has a fundamentally good nature and can gradually overcome the mistakes and flaws so readily apparent in our history, then one needs to find and identify an EXTERNAL cause for all those horrific events in history. Since humanity exhibits a stunningly consistent urge towards religious belief, that characteristic makes for a handy scapegoat.

So I think this is the point of discussion to have. If wars and conflicts come about because of religion, then one should expect atheists to have far less conflict, violence, greed, anger, exploitation, etc than one finds in religious people. Is this the case? Good luck finding data to prove it.

The point to make then is that wars come about because of the intractable nature of human fallen-ness, not the external influence of religion. Wars certainly have occurred under the pretense of religion. Most wars have pretenses veneered over the real reasons they are fought. But at root, it is human fallen-ness that causes wars. Our fallen nature is inborn, not indoctrinated.

Don’t expect them to agree with you though. Their worldview and mental health DEPENDS on maintaining their assumption that humanity can rise above our current limitations on our own. If they give up on that belief they can’t have any basis for happiness in life. So expect this view to hold out as long as the atheism does.

But I think it is good to introduce them to the idea of a humanity that is good, but fallen. That while still largely good, we possess a fatal flaw that will destroy us if we don’t get help fixing it. It’s the truth and the truth fits the facts of history better than their scapegoating does.
 
manualman said:
Don’t expect them to agree with you though. Their worldview and mental health DEPENDS on maintaining their assumption that humanity can rise above our current limitations on our own. If they give up on that belief they can’t have any basis for happiness in life. So expect this view to hold out as long as the atheism does.
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That’s not true. Even if everyone was a complete donkey there’d still be plenty of reasons to live. Like chocolate and kittens and sex and all that good stuff.
 
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