I see this statement trotted out with great regularity but is it factually accurate?

I would have thought that land acquisition, trade, power and greed have a lot to answer for too..

I haven’t got the inclination or time to do the research so I was wondering if anyone here knows the stats?

Religion is not the cause for war, but one of the means used to justify it to the participants (IMO, no research or peer reviewed articles to back this up)

Nah….26 vs 27.5 vs 29.

Rorschach – Member

Nah….26 vs 27.5 vs 29.

FFS! Who came up with 27.5 standard?

FFS! Who came up with 27.5 standard?

Splitters

People have been the cause of all wars.

Apart from the notorious penguin/polar bear wars of the early middle ages.
Only the establishment of a safe homeland for both parties, with a strictly enforced exclusion zone has prevented further bloodshed.

WWI and WWII and Vietnam weren’t about religion, so given the loss of life I’d say that political power is the main cause and religion is a front for some but not all

I haven’t got the inclination or time to do the research so I was wondering if anyone here knows the stats?

Paging jivehoneyjive.

They were about politics though.

Another method of control relying on the inability of humanity to comply with the whims of lunatics.

Its the armadillos in their underground lairs pushing all the buttons,we’re just puppets.

Who cares? What they going to do if so, ban religion?

Intolerance is the cause of all war. And often crazy forum posts.

People join the army to experience war…they don’t care what the reason for the war is.

Primates are programmed to sacrifice themselves for the good of the tribe for evolutionary advantages. Religion capitalises on base pack instincts, belonging, prostration to a mock alpha male etc. Any warmonger that doesn’t include religion in their arsenal is missing a trick. But I doubt those that start wars are really doing it for religious reasons.

Who cares?

errrr…. me, obviously hence the thread 🙄

People join the army to experience war.

I wonder how many do?

My dad joined up to get out of the pits and become a bandsman. WWII put paid to that plan.

I suspect a large number of the joiners today have the same idea – get out of their current dead end jobs and get into an environment where they might be able to learn a useful trade (and I don’t mean killing people).

Of course there will those that get a hard on waving big guns around – they become mercenaries.

Agree with majority of above. People are the problem. Religion or politics are just ways used to support challenging for resources.

Given what % of the world were religious then it is highly likely that most participants in wars were religious

however folk tend to go to war for three reasons
1. Resources /expansionism into foreign areas or to get say oil – nothing to do with religion

2, Clash of cultures/tribes/peoples ) religion is a factor in this but IMHO if we did not have religion we would not suddenly become a harmonise brotherhood of humanity and we would just fight for other tribal reasons.

3. Entirely religious reasons like god giving two folk the same space or holy wars etc

On balance I would say it has rarely helped and it is rarely casual

Therefore I will say 28% as a guess.
PS Do you want a random You tube video or strange pyramid drawing as proof?

People are indeed the problem. A Christian would call that original sin.

I wonder how many do?

My dad joined up to get out of the pits and become a bandsman. WWII put paid to that plan.

I suspect a large number of the joiners today have the same idea – get out of their current dead end jobs and get into an environment where they might be able to learn a useful trade (and I don’t mean killing people). Fair point..there are jobs in the army that are not concentrated on combat. I should have wrote, people join army combat units to experience war…they don’t care what the reasons are. Just to clarify..not having a go at anyone whose serving or served in the armed forces…you all have my utmost respect, whatever job you are doing.

No, not even slightly – not in the modern age anyway – its bitter old men and their endless need for power convincing young men to go off and kill each other for it.

Almost without exception most people just want to get on with their lives, raise kids, see their world, chase skirt, ride their bike or whatever- they need to be convinced to kill through fear of ‘others’, financial insensitive or lack of choice and they’re rewarded with the promise of glory – you see it expecially now – every Squaddie, even if the closest they’ve got to action is Salisbury is treated like the cross between saint and gladiator because we’re told to by ythe powers that be via the media – honestly bar a Solder from a club for being too pissed and The Sun will write a trash piece on you – after all, if we just treat them like everyone else who does the job they wanted to do, they might decide its not worth dying over.

PS Do you want a random You tube video or strange pyramid drawing as proof?

Do you think you could portray it through the medium of interpretive dance..?

Cheers 🙂

I can do a tree blowing in the wind…

yunki – Member
Do you think you could portray it through the medium of interpretive dance..?

Cheers

😀 😀

Certainly has in the great copy and past wars.

I think access to water has trumped religion as a cause of conflict from day 1. Religion had its day for a while (crusades et al) but then political interests took over. Now religion is back in the driving seat. Until oil/mineral resources gets back on top.

I haven’t got the inclination or time to do the research so I was wondering if anyone here knows the stats?

Paging jivehoneyjive.

I’m not going to resort to data here, merely personal conjecture:

Don’t know about in the past, but over the last 100 years or so, I daresay the majority of war has had little to do with religion.

Lets look at it like a game of chess; the pawns will do most of the fighting, but the bishop is way up in the hierarchy, brainwashing the poor suckas into believing whatever they’re fighting for is justifiable due to an invisible space ghost.

The Queen, King and Bishops (and Bankers/Rupert Murdoch) all have a good laugh about how they managed to rope people in behind closed doors, whilst raking up all the profits, from resources plundered, territory acquired and weapons sold.

To make the game more interesting, some of the pawns are actually from CIA/MI6 etc and are causing further division among the ranks to ensure no-one works out what’s going on.

Meanwhile the invisible space ghost gets angry at being used for such nefarious means…

Do you think you could portray it through the medium of interpretive dance..?

Clothed or unclothed 😉

Well, I’ve still got my pants on at the moment, but once the central heating comes on later I’ll be naked..

Will that effect your performance?

I’m not going to resort to data here, merely personal conjecture:

I’m disappointed.

For many years always seems to be the Basis of most Wars

Meanwhile the invisible space ghost gets angry at being used for such nefarious means…

So is god not a concept developed by the governments to control the people?

Once upon a time religion was certainly a primary cause, think the crusades, English civil war, various european wars, but over the last couple of centuries it’s been mostly ideological, or expansionist.

I know potentially slightly off topic…but am I the only one getting slightly annoyed with the BBC who keep giving the publicity these terrorists want by broadcasting there videos over and over?

My personal believe is that living here in the UK we are less exposed to the religious people extremes that effect more extreme societies.

Yeah, just to be clear then.

People are the cause of all wars. If they say they’re doing it for religious reasons it doesn’t change the fact it was people.

It’s like blaming guns for deaths. There’s always someone pulling the trigger.

People are the cause of all wars. If they say they’re doing it for religious reasons it doesn’t change the fact it was people.

It’s like blaming guns for deaths. There’s always someone pulling the trigger.

http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/264/html

Our results indicate that neither economic and political judgments, nor low levels of formal education appear to influence support for terrorism, raising doubt about the link between socio-economic conditions and the perceived legitimacy of terrorists acts.[23] Two particular results are worth stressing here: (i) the fact that particular values (attitudes on women’s rights – i.e. wearing the veil and working outside the home) and (ii) religious divisions (i.e. identifying as a Shi’a Muslim) did influence support for terrorism.

The implications of these results can be interpreted in a number of ways. One would be to conclude – as many political leaders and media commentators do – that the results show there is something inherently conservative and fundamentalist about Islam that generates support for violent jihad and antipathy towards Western secular values. It follows then that one solution lies in policy responses that promote a “moderate” form of Islam that encourages tolerance and a more liberal interpretation of the Quran. This is problematic, because it should not be up to governments to dictate what form of Islam Muslim people should follow – they should be free to decide for themselves. This does not mean that normative values derived from belief systems among Muslims should not be contended with or challenged when aiming to combat terrorism – the question is how can this be done in a way that does not isolate Muslim communities. This is important to consider because there is an intense debate among Muslims and Islamic scholars as to how elements of the Quran should be interpreted, for instance around the meaning of jihad [24]. Hence while there may be uniformity in the saliency of certain Islamic beliefs (e.g. jihad as a moral and spiritual battle) it does not mean that this will be expressed in similar ways i.e. used to legitimise violence.

Not all wars…. Helen of Troy anyone?