perseus
Active member
I have been reading Richard Dawkins book "The God Delusion" and not surprisingly he raised the issue of the influence of Religion on wars. Without getting deeply embroiled into the atheistic themes of his book, I was wondering how much difference religion has made to the number and depth of conflicts fought in world history. Is religion the cause of many wars or just an excuse to justify them?
There certainly seems to be a strong case for religion having a major influence on wars and conflict from the Middle Ages up to the enlightenment era, the Crusades being just one example. On the other hand, over most of history, war appears to have been fought between egoistic rulers or ruling parties for the sake of power, glory, land or resources.
It seems to me that there is a stronger motivation for conflict from primeval tribal culture than religious ideas. Here a tribal chief had a strong genetic similarly to his tribe, and the best way to spread his genes was by killing or subordinating the males or male leaders of other tribes so he could mate with its females. To be effective these chiefs needed loyalty from the other members of the original tribe to fight for him, and only those tribes with these loyalty genes were subsequently successful at spreading them. Ghengis Khan was very successful at this, and many of us carry genes that can be traced back to him personally.
Since humans still posses these genes, the urge for group loyalty, competition and conflict with other groups is still retained. This applies to any group such as military regiments, business co-operations, political groups or entire countries, as well as religious sects. Paradoxically this tendency has become irrespective of the ability of the group or the groups they convert to procreate or how much genetic similarity there is between its members. Such groups are characterised by justifying action by loyalty rather than analysing the morality or reasoning behind their actions. In other words Dawkins own theories tend to diminish the idea that religion has had a direct major impact on war, and to be fair he recognises that there are other influences as well.
So did religion have any effect at all? In ancient history most rulers were either Kings or Generals which ruled by birthright or conquest respectively, without much consent from the people, and had largely dictatorial control over them. Over the centuries this level of absolute rule was eroded, and to avoid assassination or revolution rulers had to justify their warlike actions to a wider populace by appealing to moralistic convictions. From around the start of the last millennium these were largely based on religious texts and beliefs. However, by the time of the enlightenment most educated people could see these beliefs for what they really were, and more reasoned utilitarian, or emotionally induced Kantian moralistic arguments started to replace them. However emotion itself is controlled via genes and morality is not an exact science, therefore such arguments could still be manipulated to justify genetically driven aims, which is what I believe what instigated most of the wars during the 20th century.
So in conclusion I think religion is sometimes used as an excuse for war rather than a direct cause. Genetic urges channelled through individuals and groups help to polarise whatever political or religious opinion happens to be out there. Modern leaders and ruling groups merely use these ideals to manipulate the population for their own ends.
There certainly seems to be a strong case for religion having a major influence on wars and conflict from the Middle Ages up to the enlightenment era, the Crusades being just one example. On the other hand, over most of history, war appears to have been fought between egoistic rulers or ruling parties for the sake of power, glory, land or resources.
It seems to me that there is a stronger motivation for conflict from primeval tribal culture than religious ideas. Here a tribal chief had a strong genetic similarly to his tribe, and the best way to spread his genes was by killing or subordinating the males or male leaders of other tribes so he could mate with its females. To be effective these chiefs needed loyalty from the other members of the original tribe to fight for him, and only those tribes with these loyalty genes were subsequently successful at spreading them. Ghengis Khan was very successful at this, and many of us carry genes that can be traced back to him personally.
Since humans still posses these genes, the urge for group loyalty, competition and conflict with other groups is still retained. This applies to any group such as military regiments, business co-operations, political groups or entire countries, as well as religious sects. Paradoxically this tendency has become irrespective of the ability of the group or the groups they convert to procreate or how much genetic similarity there is between its members. Such groups are characterised by justifying action by loyalty rather than analysing the morality or reasoning behind their actions. In other words Dawkins own theories tend to diminish the idea that religion has had a direct major impact on war, and to be fair he recognises that there are other influences as well.
So did religion have any effect at all? In ancient history most rulers were either Kings or Generals which ruled by birthright or conquest respectively, without much consent from the people, and had largely dictatorial control over them. Over the centuries this level of absolute rule was eroded, and to avoid assassination or revolution rulers had to justify their warlike actions to a wider populace by appealing to moralistic convictions. From around the start of the last millennium these were largely based on religious texts and beliefs. However, by the time of the enlightenment most educated people could see these beliefs for what they really were, and more reasoned utilitarian, or emotionally induced Kantian moralistic arguments started to replace them. However emotion itself is controlled via genes and morality is not an exact science, therefore such arguments could still be manipulated to justify genetically driven aims, which is what I believe what instigated most of the wars during the 20th century.
So in conclusion I think religion is sometimes used as an excuse for war rather than a direct cause. Genetic urges channelled through individuals and groups help to polarise whatever political or religious opinion happens to be out there. Modern leaders and ruling groups merely use these ideals to manipulate the population for their own ends.
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