David M. Payne

This is from the last post on my thread in EoG that asked if God was the biggest mass murderer of all time. I wonder if Wiley wasn't on to something here, as I can't think of one war that didn't have God/Religion as either the prime justification, or as a major secondary justification. As a Vietnam vet, (USMC) I remember getting it drilled into us that we were going to go kill the Godless commies for mommy. So can anyone here make a case for a war that didn't involve God(s)/Religion?

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: David Payne ]

[ September 14, 2002: Message edited by: David Payne ]</p>

Amos

I have no problem with it if you leave God out of it and just have religion as the cause of war for either the right reason or the wrong reason (I am no pacifist.

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>

Tristan Scott

If you say that god is a motivator for getting people to fight in a particular war, I would agree, however, I think very few wars are fought because of religion. Wars are generally fought because of real estate.

atheist_in_foxhole

ManM

US Civil War?

Starboy

Revolutionary war?

David M. Payne

Yes, economic, political, cultural, ethnic and social reasons among other factors, are amongst the actual reasons that most wars are fought, but they are usually not the reason given for the wars. The reasons used to justify this activity are usually good (us) vs. bad (them) and God/religion is used to say that our side (pick a side here) is the side of good. If we can eliminate the smoke screen of God/religion in warfare, we can at least have honest wars, and perhaps even no wars at all in the end.

Judging by what happened on 9/11 and all the wars going on right now that are religious in nature, that day will be a long time coming though I fear. Right now it looks like all the wars going on are very religious in nature, and God/religion is being used as the prime reason for the wars, not as just the motivational reason. This is a bad sign for the future I believe.

Yes, I thought it might be one of the few too, but if you study religious history a little you find that the northern troops and the southern troops both used their own various religions and concept of God to say the other side was the bad guy. Realy one must admit that God is very handy in the justification for war biz, he never corrects anyone for using him in the propagation of war. Of course as a myth, he can't correct anyone anyway, but that is another subject.


Yes, AF (atheist_in_foxhole ) cartoons and fiction can often say things very eloquently that would not get noticed if made as plain statements. I like this one too, thanks for the contribution.

David

Toto

You can find a lot of talk about how the South was fighting to protect true Christianity, with its approval of slavery, from those northern Unitarians. I don't think this explains the Civil War, but it does show how war mongers tend to use religion to justify whatever they do.

David M. Payne

So far it looks like the case can be made that God (S) and religion are an integral part of the war biz, as either the prime reason for the war, (See 9/11 and the Islamic fundies desire to make us decadent westerners "submit" to Islam and Allah for the latest example of God/religion being the prime motivation for the war.) Or God and religion is used as a moral justification for pursuing the underlying reasons for war, economic, political, social and ethnic etc grievances. The war in the Balkans is a good example of this last point, though I think religious conflict may runs neck and neck with the other reasons for that war. So it appears that God/religion is the prime motivator (the spark) for war these days, with many underlying factors serving as the fuel for the conflicts. Now if we could just eliminate the spark, perhaps we could solve the fuel problems that present so much peril to us all.

David

DMB

I've posted this before, but I think it sums it up. It was written by J.C.Squire at the beginning of WW1: