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> Issues such as evangelism in African countries creating religious tensions that wouldn't otherwise exist. Wars and conflict arise whenever there is a dispute

> Issues such as evangelism in African countries creating religious tensions that wouldn't otherwise exist. Wars and conflict arise whenever there is a dispute for resources and a power imbalance. You are basically claiming that the different nations and tribes would not get into conflict if it were not for religion? This reeks of "Noble Savage" fallacy. Also, how many tensions were solved because of evangelism and a shift in cultural/moral values? Can you quantify those?

ehnto 5y ago
No I'm not claiming that, you're putting words in my mouth and you're misconstruing my arguments. I have been extremely clear. As I've had to painstakingly clarify for you, just because I have commented on one thing, does not mean I am subtly making comments about other things. I am being very explicit, very clear. Please read my comments, because I'm not one to bury my lede. A better way to approach this discussion may have been to ask me questions instead of just assuming answers. You could have asked, "Do you not believe they would have gone to war for other reasons?" to which I would have replied "Of course they likely would have! But it was over religion in this instance."
- rglullis 5y ago
  > it was over religion And as I've already put in another comment: it's not because religion was the justification for a conflict that we should attribute it to religion. Many disputes and fights were had over beautiful women. Should we start claiming that women are a problem?
Retric 5y ago
Plenty of purely religious wars have happened. If you want to defend religion you also need to defend the totality of religion including Aztec human sacrifice, the crusades etc. The issue with religious justification is it’s effectively random, the only thing you can say is practices that are counterproductive to propitiate a religion die out over time. IE the shakers prohibiting reproduction for everyone not just priests is probably why their not around anymore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakers#Celibacy_and_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakers#Celibacy_and_children
- rglullis 5y ago
  I am not defending religion per se. I am just refuting the affirmation that religion should be blamed for wars that were carried out by people using religion as a justification. > Plenty of purely religious wars have happened I'd love to hear examples of those, but let's agree beforehand that a "purely religious war" would be one where there had no conflict over resources or ethnic-national divisions?
  - Retric 5y ago
    If you want a specific example, here’s one of the more interesting ones specifically because it was outside of the kind of institutions that would benefit from winning a war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Crusade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Crusade That said, your criteria represent an overly narrow view of history because most possible wars didn’t happen. You need to both gather people into a fighting force and then actually start fighting to have a war so while religion might be a pretext was also quite frequently the cause. And of course religious violence was often at a much smaller scale than an overt war. Add up smaller conflicts all the way down to stoning someone specific and collectively you have an enormous death total across human history.
    - rglullis 5y ago
      From the wikipedia page you linked, on the second paragraph: The peasant population had been afflicted by drought, famine, and disease for many years before 1096, and some of them seem to have envisioned the crusade as an escape from these hardships. It didn't even take that long to see how religion is mostly a pretext for a war over resources. > religious violence was often at a much smaller scale (...) collectively you have an enormous death total across human history. The problem is with violence, not with religion. Lots of people have committed acts of violence due to road rage, their sports teams, jealousy of a love interest and (the internet's favorite) political arguments. To try to blame Religion over the enormous death total is as silly as blaming "Car-Based Transportation", "Football" and "Biology".
      - 5y ago

ehnto 5y ago

No I'm not claiming that, you're putting words in my mouth and you're misconstruing my arguments. I have been extremely clear. As I've had to painstakingly clarify for you, just because I have commented on one thing, does not mean I am subtly making comments about other things. I am being very explicit, very clear. Please read my comments, because I'm not one to bury my lede. A better way to approach this discussion may have been to ask me questions instead of just assuming answers. You could have asked, "Do you not believe they would have gone to war for other reasons?" to which I would have replied "Of course they likely would have! But it was over religion in this instance."

rglullis 5y ago
> it was over religion And as I've already put in another comment: it's not because religion was the justification for a conflict that we should attribute it to religion. Many disputes and fights were had over beautiful women. Should we start claiming that women are a problem?

Retric 5y ago

Plenty of purely religious wars have happened. If you want to defend religion you also need to defend the totality of religion including Aztec human sacrifice, the crusades etc. The issue with religious justification is it’s effectively random, the only thing you can say is practices that are counterproductive to propitiate a religion die out over time. IE the shakers prohibiting reproduction for everyone not just priests is probably why their not around anymore. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakers#Celibacy_and_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakers#Celibacy_and_children

rglullis 5y ago
I am not defending religion per se. I am just refuting the affirmation that religion should be blamed for wars that were carried out by people using religion as a justification. > Plenty of purely religious wars have happened I'd love to hear examples of those, but let's agree beforehand that a "purely religious war" would be one where there had no conflict over resources or ethnic-national divisions?
- Retric 5y ago
  If you want a specific example, here’s one of the more interesting ones specifically because it was outside of the kind of institutions that would benefit from winning a war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Crusade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Crusade That said, your criteria represent an overly narrow view of history because most possible wars didn’t happen. You need to both gather people into a fighting force and then actually start fighting to have a war so while religion might be a pretext was also quite frequently the cause. And of course religious violence was often at a much smaller scale than an overt war. Add up smaller conflicts all the way down to stoning someone specific and collectively you have an enormous death total across human history.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    From the wikipedia page you linked, on the second paragraph: The peasant population had been afflicted by drought, famine, and disease for many years before 1096, and some of them seem to have envisioned the crusade as an escape from these hardships. It didn't even take that long to see how religion is mostly a pretext for a war over resources. > religious violence was often at a much smaller scale (...) collectively you have an enormous death total across human history. The problem is with violence, not with religion. Lots of people have committed acts of violence due to road rage, their sports teams, jealousy of a love interest and (the internet's favorite) political arguments. To try to blame Religion over the enormous death total is as silly as blaming "Car-Based Transportation", "Football" and "Biology".
    - 5y ago