Does religion cause wars?
Article author: Jay Zeke Malakai
Article editor: Jay Zeke Malakai
Introduction
It's in the movies and TV shows, it's in books, it's on atheistic forums. It is in virtually any source you can find that discusses religion: It is the claim that most of the wars in history have been caused by religion. But is this claim true? Is religion really the primary cause of war? And does it even matter if this claim is true? Read on to find out.
Equivocation of the word "religion"
First off, I would very much like to make it clear that "religion" and "Christianity" are not synonymous. Some religions stand or fall on each other. Christianity, for example, is grounded in Judaism. If Judaism was found to be a false religion, Christianity could not stand. However, proving religions such as Hinduism are false has absolutely no effect on the validity of Christianity. In fact, it would do Christianity a favour by eliminating a false religion. The argument that "religion causes all wars", however, is the same as disproving Hinduism and believing Christianity will fall aswell. This would not work. If it was true that 99%, or even 100% of all wars in history were, in fact, religious in nature, that wouldn't have any implications for Christianity unless these wars were Christian in nature. We'll explain how few wars really are Christian in nature later on in this article.
Sitting on your ground
For sake of argument, we will gloss over the blatant equivocation of the word "religion" and adress the claim that religion is the primary cause of all wars. On the subject of wars, there exists a three-volume book called the Encyclopedia of Wars, which details about 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history. According to Amazon.com, "The authors, history professors who worked on this encyclopedia for 10 years, have produced a very readable and apparently well-researched book that both scholars and history buffs will enjoy."
Of those wars, only 123 are religious in nature. That leaves an astonishing 93% of all wars that have no religious (at least not theistic) motivation. Non-Islamic religions have caused a grand total of: 57 wars. 57/1763. That's just over 3%. The other 4%, of course, were caused by Islam. Islam, by nature, is a war-like religion. The ultimate goal of Islam is to take over the world and kill anyone who does not believe in Allah and Muhammad (or make them so afraid that they pay the "Jizyah", which is a tax acknowledging the inferiority of their beliefs). By that fact alone, it should be true that religion is the primary cause of all wars, yet even Islam is responsible for only 4% of all wars in recorded history.
Atheism's body count
Islam, in its 1400 years of existence, is said to have amassed a total of around 290million victims.
Atheism, while it has been around for a while, has only recently become popular. Despite this short reign, atheism has almost met, and possibly exceeded, the total body count of Islam. Various dictators have killed many people. Here is a short list of deaths caused by atheistic principles or dictators:
Evolution's aborigine bodysnatch: 15,000
Pol Pot: 2,397,000
Hideki Tojo: 3,990,000
Leon Trotsky: 4,000,000
Vladimir Lenin: 4,017,000
Chiang Kai-shek: 10,214,000
Adolf Hitler: 20,946,000
Mao Zedong: 37,828,000
Joseph Stalin: 42,672,000
Abortion: 57,000,000
In his book Death by Government, R.J. Rummel states "Almost 170 million men, women and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed or killed in any other of a myriad of ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead could conceivably be nearly 360 million people. It is though our species has been devastated by a modern Black Plague. And indeed it has, but a plague of Power, not germs." Atheism, of course, is not immoral by nature, but amoral. There are no commandsin atheism. An atheist does as an atheist does. That being said, there is no command to kill in the name of atheism. How is it possible, then, that a combination of all atheistic wars has matched Islam, which is by nature a bloodthirsty religion, in its body count?
Hypocrisy in religion
Those who claim religion is the primary cause of all war face another problem: Hypocrisy within the various faiths of the world. Not only should various religions not be judged by each other's failures, but they should also not be judged by the actions of those who profess them. See, as with every other area of life, there are hypocrites in every religion. There are people who claim to believe X but really believe the opposite. Christianity is no exception. In fact, I dare go as far as to say there are more hypocrites in Christianity than there are in any religion the world over. As demonstrated in multiple articles throughout the site, not everyone who says they are a Christian actually is a Christian. The question we can ask now, then, is what does Christianity say about war?
To sum up the Bible's opinion of war, it ultimately says that God picks his own fights. God does not need us, as Christians, to do his fighting for him. Starting wars is out of the question for us, and there is even some controversy as to whether or not a Christian should ever fight in an existing war either. When Jesus was brought before Pilate, Jesus told him "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world." (John 18:36). Well, that seems pretty solid to me. Not only did Jesus command Peter not to fight those who were attacking him (Matthew 26:52), but here we have Jesus essentially saying that this world is not worth fighting for, and that if it was, Jesus would actually command us to fight for him. If Christians weren't permitted to fight the Jews to save Jesus' life, what business do we have fighting any kind of war in Jesus' name? I mean really, how much clearer can you get?
What's that? You want more Biblical texts that condemn starting wars for Christianity? Ok, we'll take Romans 12:18, which says If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. At this point, I am remembering a conversation I once had with an atheist. He said something along the lines of "I disagree with all religions, you're just one of the ones that doesn't hate me." Now that is one of the wisest things I've ever heard that particular atheist say. And how true should it be, according to this verse? If I'm supposed to live peacably with all, how could I support a war between Christians and, for example, atheists?
Then we come to Matthew 10:14. And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. If we come to a town that rejects Christianity, the response isn't "kill everything that moves", the response is to kick the dust from our feet and move on. And in Acts 13:51, we see that command being fulfilled when Paul and Barnabus came to Antioch! The Jews rejected their message, but they didn't kick up a fuss or stir up war, they just kicked the dust from their feet and moved on.
But the Bible doesn't stop there. In Matthew 5:44, in the famous sermon on the mount, Jesus introduces the somewhat alien concept of loving even your enemies, and praying for those who persecute you. This concept is so difficult to grasp, even many Christians struggle with it. I, myself, often fail in this, yet according to Jesus, it is of paramount importance. Can you imagine how many wars would never have happened, or would end, if people would just adopt the Christian concept of loving their enemies? The world would be at peace.
With all this in mind, can we really hold Christianity responsible for various wars throughout history? The scriptures firmly reject this as a possibility. Those who wage war in the name of Christianity are not living consistently with the scriptures. In fact, the majority of wars attributed to Christianity were actually fought by Catholicism, a religion so anti-Christian, it might as well name itself Satanism. Catholicism has held anti-Christian beliefs since its origin in the 3rd century AD, and has spilled more Christian blood than any Roman emporer ever did.
Can a Christian fight in war?
Conflict is a terrible thing, and Christians are certainly called to avoid it. But that doesn't mean Christians must never fight. There are times when God would condone war (Ecclesiastes 3:8). There is a time and a place for conflict. Without a direct command from God, it can be quite difficult to determine exactly when these times are, and ultimately a Christian should pray for wisdom when deciding to join their country's military or other armed force, such as the police. However, for the most part, a Christian should avoid conflict. Christianity is a peaceful faith.
Conclusion
The claim that religion is responsible for nearly all wars in history is worth about as much as something that drips from your nose when you have a cold. It has no basis in the facts. Even when war-like religions, such as Islam, are included in the statistics, religion still only accounts for 7% of the world's wars. More to the point, war is almost completely incompatible with Christianity. Christianity, in its purest form, is about as peaceful as you can get, and if everyone on Earth adopted Christian values, war would be completely eliminated before the sun goes down. By contrast atheism, which is the professed faith of the majority of people who use this argument, has been a leading cause of the most violent wars, leading to more deaths in the past 150 years than Islam in the past 1,400 years. No, religion is not the leading cause of wars.
Responses
In response to this article, one critic decided to defend Islam. Jay Zeke Malakai responds to said critic here.