Clivedurdle

Sun Tzu - the Art of War comments that the best strategy is to arrange things so that your enemy does not know they have been defeated.

All powers have similar issues of controlling their populations - what better way than to win hearts and minds?

What is new about xianity and later Islam is that they are evangelical - Islam in fact uses the concept holy war.

It may not have been that conscious - a pragmatic thing that grew. The invention of the idea of heresy would have been a very useful tool of social control.

openlyatheist

Christianity is an old form of warfare. :devil2:

Clivedurdle

New at the time!

Toto

moving this to grd

DMB

The really weird thing is that violence often works. We are often told about groups who kept their "faith" going, sometimes for generations, in very adverse circumstances, even facing death rather than give it up. But the fact that so many Europeans in the Balkans are Muslims or that so many descendants of fervent French Protestants sincerely embraced Catholicism after the persecutions of their ancestors' religious groups shows that coercion can work in matters of "faith".

Perhaps that is a bit crude and I ought to have written "coercion followed by brainwashing".

general_koffi

Not generally or exclusively, but religion has historically been an important part of propaganda and psychological warfare.

In any case, it wouldn't be a "form of warfare". It would be a weapon.

WWJD4aKlondikeBar

Insomuch as diplomacy or embargo can be considered weapons.