I come in contact with a lot of people these days, who say that religion is the cause of war, and that if we take religion away, we will be able to live in peace.However, you will find out that this is not so true! Look at the Crusades! Many went to war believing that the "others" were the bad guys, that the "others" were the non-believers. Many say that the primary cause of the Crusade was religion, and rarely do we hear about politics, economy, land being major reasons for going to war. They needed to have a valid reason for war, and religion satisfied well enough.
Look at the Lebanese war, where many still believe that religion was the cause of the war that went on for 30 years. But in fact, it's quite the opposite. Anything that separates me from my neighbor will be used by outsiders to initiate a war. And what serves better than religion?
Look at what happened among the two Christian parties in Lebanon for example. Both were Christians, so why the war? Only to find out that the two parties were after position and eventually their greed led them to further destruction of Lebanon in the end.
What about the Armenian Genocide? It wasn't for religion that the Armenians were massacred by the Turks. But, definitely, the Turkish leaders used religion to stir up the emotions of the people, that the Armenians were "gyavour"s, and non-believers.
Religion was used as the mask for the real causes of war. If you look deep into the facts of every war, you will find business, politics, and greed as the real causes of war.
Look at apostle Paul, who was evangelizing in Philippi.
Let's go to Acts Chapter 16 and read it together.
18) ... ,"In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!" At that moment the spirit left her. 19) When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. 20) They brought them before the magistrates and said, "These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar 21 ) by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice."
By exorcising the demon from the girl, Paul had exorcised their source of income, something that made them angry and they thought of a way to get back at Paul. They had to find something common, something that would help them get the people's anger against him. They had to come up with something good, and stir the people up against Paul. And they used religion, "These men are Jews", and later on we read, "advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice".
Now wait a minute.. What has customs got to do with Paul? What uproar?
Despite the false accusations, the slave owners were able to create an uproar against Paul, and they used religion for their own purposes. While economy, business and greed were the real reasons for their initiative to wage "war" against Paul, they masked it with religion and they masked it very well.
Religion may be one of the causes of war, but it definitely isn't the major one. Politics, self love, anger, greed are the real causes of war, specially today.
Raffi