Off Topic — HabitableZone

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re: Religious warfare
ER — (archived)

Both Naziism and Communism exhibited some charateristics of religions: sacred texts, a historic inevitability and a "scientific" rationale to their cause, charismatic leaders, a pantheon of saints and messiahs, even an icongraphy of symbols. But the root cause of most war is real estate.

We have little knowledge of how Pharaoh whipped up his people for conquest, but I suppose in those days wars were more personal, leader vs leader, and fought by professional mercenary armies which comprised only small percentages of their populations. The common people may only have officially heard about a war after it was over (assuming it was successful), although I suspect that the increase in their taxes during hostilities made them hip to what was going down.

In classical times and the feudal era things didn't change much, but the wars of conquest of Islam, and the crusades were certainly religious in nature, although both Christians and Muslims were certainly ready to fight their own religious brothers at the drop of a hat, and religious fervor didn't stop either side from plundering the losers. The era of European colonialism was all about resources and markets, but spreading Christianity and "civilization" was always part of the propaganda. European wars were usually squabbles between colonial rivals over foreign interests.

I suppose its fair to say that religion isn't necessarily the cause of wars, but very often it is the excuse for it.

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