One a year is terrible, but the reality appears a long way from what we are often served up. You desire and do not have, so you murder. His question constituted a new actuality; from now on, Christians and churches had to choose between the testimony of the gospel, which included renunciation of violence, and responsible participation in political power, which was understood as an act of love toward the world." This is because of the one hundred events White lists in his detailed study, he only lists eleven of them under the category of Religious Conflict (p. 544) and two more under the category of Human Sacrifice, (p. 548) [111] Members of the Historic Peace Churches such as Quakers, Mennonites, Amish and the Church of the Brethren object to war based on their conviction that Christian life is incompatible with military actions, because Jesus enjoins his followers to love their enemies and refrain from committing acts of violence. Why should religion trigger a human to kill another human? This verse has been used to justify racialized slavery, since "Christians and even some Muslims eventually identified Ham's descendents as black Africans". Religion was a component in many wars, but the main causes are differences in culture and greed for territory, resources or power. Some kill because they're psychologically disturbed, but none so far in the name of atheism. Russias communist USSR gave rise to both Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Illich Lenin whom murdered 42,672,000 and 4,017,000, Chinas communist Mao Tse-tung and militarist/fascist Chiang Kai-sheck whom murdered 37,828,000 and 10,214,000, communist Cambodias Pol Pot whom murdered 2,397,000, Germanys fascist Adolf Hitler whom murdered 20,946,000, and Imperial Japans militarist/fascist Tojo Hideki whom murdered 3,990,000. If we consider the sins of the Christian past critics have plenty to work with witch-hunts, the Crusades, Christian support of slavery. [56] Others were subjected to lesser punishments or penance, but the fate of many of those who were tried by the Inquisition is unknown. [34] Neo-atheism, the belief that science is the only path to truth and all religions are equally deluded and destructive, has taken hold in much of the debate over atheism. Very clearly Paul the Apostle and Jesus write that it isdue to their hardness of heart, thatin the futility of their mindsThey are darkened in their understanding(Ephesians4v17,18). If we make a list of the names of the wars from the body of the document, and search for obvious key words (like Allah, Amir, Arab-Israeli, Bishop, Caliphate, Catholic, Charlemagne, Christian, Church, Crusade, Covenanter, Druse, Hindu, Holy, Imam, Janissaries, Jew, Monk, Mormon, Muslim, Papal, Pope, Protestant, Religion, Sacred, Saint, Saladin, Shiite, Sikh, Sultan, Sunni, Taliban, Temple) we have already identified 127 Wars already more than claimed. He cites Jesus striking Paul during Paul's vision on the road to Damascus. It can be a god, but it can also be a political philosophy like nazism or communism. Finally, to these three points, Kreider added that Christian attitudes towards violence were likely varied in different geographical locations, pointing out that pro-militarist views were stronger in border areas then they were in "heartland" areas which were more strongly aligned with the Empire. Additionally, I would bargain that many religious conflicts were not actually fueled by theological disagreements, although Im not at all claiming this was always the case, but instead were implicitly fueled by politics where political and religious lines matched. Does religion cause most wars? This, we see, is why their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known(Romans3v15-17). Has religion, in fact, been the cause of much of the oppression and war throughout history? [23]:4[24][25], This consensus was challenged mostly by the work of John Helgeland[26] in the 1970s and 1980s. I heard somewhere (I've never been able to discover where) that terrorism occurs when you combine a sense of military and economic inferiority with a sense of moral superiority. Francis Bacon said there were five causes for holy war: (he wrote in a Christian context, but the categories would be usable by any faith) to spread the faith Breivik, like the devoutly religious Taliban, also appears to feel no shame. His desire to perpetuate French weakness through civil war led him at one point to negotiate with the Huguenot leader, Henry of Navarre (afterward Henry IV of France). [76], Examples of forced conversion to Christianity include: the Christian persecution of paganism under Theodosius I,[77] the forced conversion and violent assimilation of pagan tribes in medieval Europe,[78] the Inquisition, including its manifestations in Goa, Mexico, Portugal, and Spain, the forced conversion of indigenous children in North America[79] and Australia[80]. Hodgson, Natasha R., Amy Fuller, John McCallum, Nicholas Morton (eds. Fact Check: Religious Wars: Only 123 of 1763? David M Schell Paul did not renounce the institution of slavery, though perhaps this was not for personal reasons (similar to Aristotle). Muslim Wars The first comment is literally a data-driven breakdown. Clearly the unjustified and untested methodology of using the index to determine the number of religious wars, is fundamentally flawed, and dramatically understates the causes as identified by the authors in the body. The relationship between nature and culture, The term and concept before the 18th century, Enlightenment scorn and Romantic admiration, Late antiquity: the reconfiguration of the Roman world, The organization of late imperial Christianity, The transformation of thought and learning, The structure of ecclesiastical and devotional life, From persuasion to coercion: The emergence of a new ecclesiastical discipline, From territorial principalities to territorial monarchies. Anyone who is angered about something or someone is potentially a warmonger, given their power to rally the masses. [100] The commitment to pacifism and the rejection of military service are attributed by Mark J. Allman, professor in the Department of Religious and Theological Studies at Merrimack College,[101] to two principles: "(1) the use of force (violence) was seen as antithetical to Jesus' teachings and service in the Roman military required worship of the emperor as a god which was a form of idolatry. His assessment of them is unmistakable: I never knew you. and Shelly Matthews, associate professor of religion at Furman University,[12] write that some scholars, such as Ren Girard, "lift up the New Testament as somehow containing the antidote for Old Testament violence". Muslim scholars developed a just-war theory although admittedly in the ensuing centuries jihad was also used to further the territorial ambitions of ruthless leaders, just as today it's distorted to justify terrorist bombings. IOW, war too is a social construct. [20], Historically, according to Ren Girard, many Christians embraced violence when it became the state religion of the Roman Empire: "Beginning with Constantine, Christianity triumphed at the level of the state and soon began to cloak with its authority persecutions similar to those in which the early Christians were victims. Already Celsus asked bitterly whether Christians, by aloofness from society, wanted to increase the political power of wild and lawless barbarians. Arab Israeli Wars In the Low Countries, English, French, and German armies intervened; and at sea Dutch, Huguenot, and English corsairs fought the Battle of the Atlantic against the Spanish champion of the Counter-Reformation. WWII is described as one war in the indexes, and multiple wars with different geographical fronts, in the body of the encyclopedia). Note : depending on whether one uses the alphabetical list, the chronological list, or the body of the encyclopedia, there are minor variations in numbers of wars (e.g. WebIt's not just religious ideology that causes problems state-imposed atheism was a defining feature of brutal 20th century regimes led by Stalin, Tito, Mao Zedong, and Pol "[103] Clement of Alexandria wrote: "Above all, Christians are not allowed to correct with violence the delinquencies of sins. Religion is not to blame; indeed secular ideologies and philosophies have contributed far more to human bloodshed. Why will my belief affect someone else's belief? Augustine of Hippo's Epistle to Marcellinus (Ep 138) is the most influential example of the "new type of interpretation". However, the actual death toll was probably higher, according to the data which Dedieu and Garca Crcel provided to the tribunals of Toledo and Valencia, respectively. This is a basic assumption of many who incorporate it into their justification for disbelief; so does it, on its own, disprove religion? The case of Judeo-Christian Controversy, Second to Seventeenth Century" in S. Chandra (dir.). "Do you ever worry," Dawkins asked, "that if we win and, so to speak, destroy Christianity, that vacuum would be filled with Islam?". He said that most of the early Christians opposed military service because they refused to practice the Roman religion and they also refused to perform the rituals of the Roman army, not because they were against killing. WebThe 2020 Global Terrorism Index (GTI), reported that since 2014 far-right attacks have increased 250 percent to reach forty-nine incidents across North America, Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), and Western Europe, and related deaths have spiked by more than 700 percent, from eleven deaths in 2014 to eighty-nine in 2019. Everything You Need to Know About The Pros and Cons of Using Disposable Vapes, Mandatory Or Not? None of this is to excuse the undeniable barbarity unleashed by religionists over the centuries. how many religious wars have there been in the us? [99], In the first few centuries of Christianity, many Christians refused to engage in military service. What effect does that have on whether a view is consistent or inconsistent with reality? Religion then, exonerated from the charge, is not a major contributor to humanitys wars in proportion to all wars fought. Required fields are marked *. Have a nice day. The encyclopedia (that is cited by theists as an acceptable source for Religious War analysis) lists 459 religious wars out of 1762 in total 26%. Soviet war/post-war repression Leader: Joseph Stalin Religion, however, isnt going anywhere; theWorld Religion Databaseexpects there to be a net gain of over a billion Christians, and a net loss of almost 2 million Agnostics and more than 4 million Atheists from 2010 to 2050. If we expand the list to include lesser known religions and religious groups (like Almohad, Almoravid, Fatimid, Hamdanids, Ikshidids, Janissar, Kharijite, Khurramite, Maratha, Moro , Mogul, Muhammad, Saffarid) that gives us 163 Religious wars more than 40 more than claimed. He is to be treated properly. "[68] When a suspect was convicted of unrepentant heresy, the inquisitorial tribunal was required by law to hand the person over to the secular authorities for final sentencing, at which point a magistrate would determine the penalty, which was usually burning at the stake although the penalty varied based on local law. Is religion a power for peace or does it cause conflict? The rabbi concludes, From their list of 1,763 wars only 123 have been classified to involve a religious cause, accounting for less than 7 percent of all wars and less than 2 percent of all people killed in warfare. Such groups have cited Old Testament and New Testament scriptures as justifications for acts of violence and killings or they have sought to bring about the "end times" which are described in the New Testament.[74]. A view is regarded incorrect based on the reasons, or lack thereof, for the view, not by how kind or cruel the behavior is of the person who holds to the view. It also happens that some of these key figures, including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, are backers of state violence against Muslim countries since 11 September 2001.It's clearly an exaggeration to suggest atheists are rampaging through the streets demanding the end of religious belief but the last decade has seen an ever-increasing number of atheists feeling the need to ridicule or damn people who do believe in a god. The southern Netherlands remained Catholic and Spanish, but the Dutch provinces formed an independent Protestant federation in which republican and dynastic influences were nicely balanced. The eight wars of religion (1562 [69][70] The laws were inclusive of proscriptions against certain religious crimes (heresy, etc. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel(James4v1,2). His leadership of the civil rights struggle remains a fine example of love triumphing over hate; of costly and courageous resistance of evil and of religiously inspired social action that made the kind of difference that everyone can appreciate. Hunter's third point of the "new consensus" is the assertion that the just war theory reflects at least one pre-Constantinian view. List of Wars | Historical Conflicts from the Trojan War to Present Anne L. Barstow, Peters writes: "When faced with a convicted heretic who refused to recant, or who relapsed into heresy, the inquisitors were to turn him over to the temporal authorities the "secular arm" for. The Crusades, the Inquisition, some of the religious wars of the Reformation, and the Salem witch trials, on the other hand, were more theological. The criteria of the just war tradition act as an aid to determining whether resorting to arms is morally permissible. Greg Kouklpoints out that. Speicher, Sara and Durnbaugh, Donald F. (2003), Ecumenical Dictionary: strategy for social and political struggles, I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword, New York University College of Arts and Science, Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, History of Christian thought on persecution and tolerance, Christian persecution of paganism under Theodosius I, forced conversion of indigenous children in North America, Religious antisemitism Christian antisemitism, a misunderstanding of Jewish beliefs and practices, Religion and peacebuilding Christianity and peacebuilding, present-day Christian churches and communities, "Religion & Ethics Just War Theory -introduction", "Shelly Matthews Brite Divinity School", "Helgeland History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies (NDSU)", "Just War Theory [The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]", Christians and War: Thomas Aquinas refines the "Just War" Theory, "Christian Jihad: The Crusades and Killing in the Name of Christ", "Favorite Professors: Remembering Jill Claster (WSC '52, GSAS '54)", "Daniel Chirot Department of Sociology University of Washington", "Goa Inquisition was most merciless and cruel", "Estimates of Executions (based on Hutton's essay 'Counting the Witch Hunt')", "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith", "Wound: The Legacy of Native American Schools". Out of 51,00075,000 cases which were judged by the Inquisition in Italy after 1542, around 1,250 of them resulted in death sentences. Do historians agree that most wars are caused by religion? A comparison with the claimed 120 yields a surprising list of 43 religious wars NOT included under the Religious Wars rubric , including : Optimize Lead Nurturing & Accelerate Sales Growth With Salesforce Pardot. [81] The early Christian perspectives on slavery were formed in the contexts of Christianity's roots in Judaism, and they were also shaped by the wider culture of the Roman Empire. B. Eerdmans; Brill. All saw their mass murder as a political act of protest and all felt justified. From 1917 to 1987, in a span of under 70 years, roughly 121,332,000 human beings were murdered by these government regimes. Higher law has been used to justify violence by Christians. Rather, Paul's discussion about the duties of Christian slaves and the responsibilities of Christian masters transforms the institution, even if it falls short of calling for slavery's outright abolition. B. Hoffman, "Inside Terrorism", Columbia University Press, 1999, pp. Does the Bible Justify Violence? ", The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, Christian thought on persecution and tolerance, The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christianity_and_violence&oldid=1160112724, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using sidebar with the child parameter, All articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases, Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from June 2017, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2020, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2017, Articles lacking reliable references from June 2017, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2021, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0. My gentle, peaceable mate, wanting to avoid one of those conversations, said: "Mam, Yazzy doesn't like pork so don't give her any." The cause, of course, goes deeper than political dogma or philosophical ideology. Religion was the primary cause for 98% of respondents. He also said, 'Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem! Germany, France, and the Netherlands each achieved a settlement of the religious problem by means of war, and in each case the solution contained original aspects. It is the great tragedy of the human condition, but a reality we must accept if we are to accurately understand and identifywhythere has been so much war, oppression and suffering. In 1588 the destruction of the Spanish Armada against England was intimately connected with the progress of the struggles in France and the Netherlands. [67] "The overwhelming majority of sentences seem to have consisted of penances like wearing a cross sewn on one's clothes, going on pilgrimage, etc. [8] Concepts such as "Holy war", whereby fighting itself might be considered a penitential and spiritually meritorious act, did not emerge before the 11th century. Janissaries Revolts In other words, human beings are generally only prepared to fight and kill in the name of something. Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people and wounded 800, hated the government. wars It was this transformation (which came from viewing all persons as being made in God's image) that ultimately destroyed slavery. ", Fahlbusch, E., & Bromiley, G. W. (2005). The house of Orange, represented by William I the Silent and Louis of Nassau, acted as the focus of the revolt; and, in the undogmatic and flexible personality of William, the rebels found leadership in many ways similar to that of Henry of Navarre. On the other side of the world, Anders Behring Breivik slaughtered 77 Norwegians. Casualties: approx 3.5 million Bit of a no-score draw, they were all arseholes who killed many innocents, the US significantly more than the rest but only because they had better weapons. The movement, whose keys figures include Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett, is an ideology that arrogantly celebrates an understanding of everything through supposed reason and proof. WebThe claims that (1) there have been 1,763 wars in human history, and (2) only 123 of them are a result of religious causes, appear explicitly nowhere in Encyclopedia of Wars. [38] In more recent years, a third categoryjus post bellumhas been added, which governs the justice of war termination and peace agreements, as well as the prosecution of war criminals. WebMost modern wars, including the Napoleonic Campaign, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the American Civil War, World War I, the Russia Revolution, World Of this number, 57 of them were sentenced to death and executed, and another 64 were burned in effigy (this sentence was imposed on those persons who had either fled or died in prison; in the latter case, the executed person's remains and the effigy were both placed in a coffin and burned at the same time).