The "Religion Causes War" put-up or shut-up challenge:

[struggle4progress]

here are some lists of US military inventions. Which of these conflicts were essentially religious?

FROM WOUNDED KNEE TO IRAQ: A CENTURY OF U.S. MILITARY INTERVENTIONS
http://www.swans.com/library/art6/zig055.html

List of United States military history events
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_military_history_events

US Interventions
US Military and Clandestine Operations in Foreign Countries - 1798-Present
Global Policy Forum
December 2005
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/history/interventions.htm

A Brief History of U.S. Interventions: 1945 to the Present
by William Blum
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/US_Interventions_WBlumZ.html

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

1. Have people ever gone to war for Buddhism?

I can't think of an instance, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

[struggle4progress]

2. I am not aware of any US military intervention that could plausibly be blamed on the Buddhists

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

7. Ah, we're just talking about Americans.

Carry on.

[struggle4progress]

23. I'm hoping to replace sweeping generalizations with more limited historical arguments

[county worker]

13. Buddhism isn't a religion I would say, there is no god or no creed.

More a way to live your life than a religion.

[ZombieHorde]

110. Buddhism is a religion, and they do have a creed.

Some Buddhists even have gods.

Taoism is a religion too.

[happyslug]

17. The Sri Lanka Civil War has Buddhist support, so the answer is yes.

Thailand when it was known as Siam used Buddhism as grounds for its expansion. Some monks in China and Korea during the period we in the west call the Middle Ages, fought for Buddhism.

Some articles on this subject (Please be careful reading them, most have a tendency to be Anti-Buddhist):
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/ngier/slrv.htm

Radical Warrior Buddhist in Japan:
http://www.samurai-archives.com/ikk.html

[struggle4progress]

76. In the case of Sri Lanka, where the conflict appears to involve a complex

mixture of ethnic nationalist and ideological issues, how do you come to the conclusion that Buddhism is responsible? Although it appears that the cultural divisions largely follow religious divisions, there are other ways to read those divisions, which might more usefully represent the history behind the war

[happyslug]

78. That is almost EVERY conflict, but the question was on Buddhist and War.

And thus my response. People never go to war for ideology, people go to war for SOMETHING (Even bin Laden went to war to get the US out of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Mid East NOT to spread Islam), either to keep control of something OR to take something. Ideology is often used to justify such action (as bin Laden is doing with Islam in his war to drive the US out of the Mid East), but the real reason is almost always something else, but the question was Buddhism a FACTOR in going to war, and it is a FACTOR in Sri Lanka especially on the side of the Government and its refusal to compromise with the Rebels.

[struggle4progress]

85. The question was "Have people ever gone to war for Buddhism?"

and there seems to be no evidence that the Sri Lankan civil war began as an effort to save Buddhism or to promulgate it

[Sanctified]

67. You should read "Zen at War".

It's a book which I found fascinating about the Buddhist influence in Japanese Imperialism during the Meiji Restoration. Here is a link to the Wiki on the book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_at_War

[struggle4progress]

75. "Zen at War" sounds like a fascinating book, and of course it is (unfortunately)

not at all uncommon for many people to support their government in war, regardless of the actual merits of the cause and regardless of individual philosophical, political, or religious pursuations: for this reason, it is quite credible that a number of Zen Buddhists supported the imperial Japanese war effort

In seeking information on the book (which I have not read), I found a number of cautionary comments and articles -- which I am not competent to evaluate but which suggest that the book may not always accurately present the views of various persons it purports to examine. For definiteness, I'll mainly reproduce snippets relating to D.T. Suzuki

Zen at War
by Brian Victoria
Weatherhill, 1997. 228 pages.
Reviewed by David Loy

... Zen at War does not attempt to present a balanced view of Zen during the period in question, and that is one of its strengths: it is a passionate book because it addresses ethical issues that deserve more than a dispassionate evaluation -- at least for Zen students like myself ...

http://www.bpf.org/tsangha/loy-victoria.html

The next three snippets indicate what view Victoria advances of Suzuki

New York Times
January 11, 2003
Meditating on War and Guilt, Zen Says It's Sorry
By ALLAN M. JALON

... Both of Mr. Victoria's books peel back layers of the career of D. T. Suzuki, who taught at Columbia University in the 1950's and remains the best-known Japanese advocate of Zen in the West. In 1938, however, Mr. Suzuki used his prestige as a scholar in Japan to assert that Zen's "ascetic tendency" teaches the Japanese soldier "that to go straight forward and crush the enemy is all that is necessary for him" ...

http://www.cuke.com/victoria/ZWS%20review%20NYT.html

A Review of Zen at War
Zen at War. By Brian (Daizen) A. Victoria. New York & Tokyo: Weatherhill, 1997, xii + 228 pages, ISBN 0-8348-0405-0, $19.95
Reviewed By Fabio Rambelli
Williams College

... The book relates several cases, such as that of .. D.T. Suzuki: "it is really not he <the soldier> but the sword itself that does the killing. He had no desire to do harm to anybody, but the enemy appears and makes himself a victim" (p. 110),which is in turn connected to the popular theme of the "sword that gives life" by killing ...

http://www.buddhistethics.org/5/rambell.html

... Apologists for war weren’t fringe priests, but some of the biggest names of Japanese Buddhism — including, for example, D.T. Suzuki, a famous Zen scholar whose works have been widely translated and studied. Victoria finds that Suzuki laid out many of the basic principles that would be used by Buddhist leaders right up to Japan’s defeat:
“(1) Japan has the right to pursue its commercial and trade ambitions as it sees fit; (2) should “unruly heathens” (jama gedo) of any country interfere with that right, they deserve to be punished for interfering with the progress of all humanity; (3) such punishment will be carried out with the full and unconditional support of Japan’s religions, for it is undertaken with no other goal in mind than to ensure that justice prevails; (4) soldiers must, without the slightest hesitation or regret, offer up their lives to the state in carrying out such religion-sanctioned punishment; and (5) discharging one’s duty to the state on the battlefield is a religious act” ...

http://atheism.about.com/od/bookreviews/fr/ZenAtWar.htm

A question, that may need to be answered, is whether when we read Suzuki's pre-WWII writings, they acquire a different meaning from our hindsight

“A Zen Life: D.T. Suzuki” (DVD)
Bodhipaksa (June 17, 2008)

... Suzuki has, quite inappropriately I believe, been accused of being pro-war, or at least not sufficiently anti-war (a criticism that perhaps is easy to make when one is at a safe distance from a repressive and fanatical dictatorship). In fact he is on record as saying that a war between the two countries he loved was ridiculous, and at a “going away” ceremony for students at Otani University he said, “What reason is there for young Americans and young Japanese to kill each other?” He urged them to stay alive at all costs, even if it meant becoming prisoners of war (a shocking thing to say at that time). He told them that after the war, “young people like you will have to rebuild the world” and that they must “come back alive.” His confidence in the eventual end of the war was absolute, and he continued to write in Japanese for eventual publication in English ...

http://www.wildmind.org/blogs/book-reviews/a-zen-life-dt-suzuki-dvd

Poisoned Pen Letters? D.T. Suzuki’s Communication of Zen to the West
By Dharmachāri Nāgapriya

... While Victoria’s overall assessment of Suzuki in relation to militarism is rather damning, Kirita Kiyohide has offered a much more sympathetic reading of Suzuki’s views on this matter. Drawing on the same sources as Victoria, Kirita comes to a rather different assessment of Suzuki’s views of the state and of nihonjinron. For instance, Suzuki wrote in his first published work in Japanese, A New Theory of Religion:

Religion never hesitates to question the existence of the state and history; the state always acts on the basis of its own self-centred interests. In this way, religion and the state are incompatible

These hardly seem the words of a nationalist appeaser. Yet elsewhere in the same work Suzuki proposes that the role of religion is ‘first of all to try to support the state and to abide by the history and sentiments of its people.’ These statements seem rather at odds with one another and may well reflect a youthful Suzuki (he was in his mid-twenties) who was confused about what he thought. In later writings, he expresses criticisms of the Imperial family and questions the greatness of the Japanese people. Kirita argues that Suzuki condemned the linkage of Zen with war and where he couldn’t actively condemn it, he chose to write on more general Zen subjects. Kirita quotes, for instance, the following:

Some people think that to die recklessly is Zen. Zen absolutely never teaches one to throw one’s life away ...

http://www.westernbuddhistreview.com/vol5/suzuki-gentium.html

D. T. Suzuki on Society and the State
Kirita Kiyohide

Suzuki’s first book, A New Theory of Religion, ... published when he was
twenty-six years old, .... opens with an exposition of a modern, Enlightenment view of religion

Religion sees its ultimate purpose as the realization of a cosmic ideal; the state sees as its ultimate purpose the preservation of its own existence .... Religion professes universal brotherhood and enjoins against making any distinction between self and other; the state is based on the principles of loyalty and patriotic sentiment, and exhorts its citizens to independence ... Formation of the state is not the purpose of human existence but merely an expedient means, nothing more than a single stage that must be passed by humanity in the course of its development. Humanity exists for the sake of humanity, not for the sake of the state…. In order that the existence of the state does not hinder the realization of the hopes and ideals of religion, that is, of humanity, the state must, I believe, be reformed when necessary

... During the war years his only non-Buddhist writings were on the subject of Japanese culture ... The following passage is typical of his style

The Japanese are highly sentimental and lacking in logic, have difficulty in forming an independent judgment on the right and wrong of things, are only concerned about being ridiculed by others, and are reluctant to enter into unknown and unexplored areas, and if they should dare to do so, they do it recklessly and without any plans made in advance

Suzuki further claims that this sentimentality lay behind the “human torpedoes” and “kamikaze squadrons,” but at once questions how the sacrifice of human life in an attempt to make up for the shortage of mechanical equipment and the inadequacy of scientific technology could ever be considered a noble cause. This was also a criticism of the military establishment ...

<google html:> http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:H9iaBqtE2SAJ:www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/nlarc/pdf/Rude%2520awakenings/Kirita.pdf+%22d.+t.+suzuki%22+war&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=us&client=opera
<pdf:> http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/nlarc/pdf/Rude%20awakenings/Kirita.pdf

Such details will color any interpretation of Suzuki's post-war attitude, since his post-war anti-militarism appears differently, depending on whether or not he was a militarist during the war

[Lydia Leftcoast]

112. Definitely!

In medieval Japan, Buddhist monasteries were a powerful political force. The monks used to come rampaging down Hieizan and storm Kyoto if the emperor did something that displeased them.

The samurai all considered themselves devout Buddhists. They considered their willingness to die to be a sign of their lack of attachment to the world.

In modern Sri Lanka, the civil war is between the Hindu Tamils and the Buddhist Sinhalese, but it's not clear whether their particlar war is religious or ethnic.

[A HERETIC I AM]

3. Religion was never the cause of war.

All of the major human endeavors throughout history can be boiled down to two causes.

Ego and greed.

Religious wars are often a combination of the two.

[Juche]

4. US vs THEM divisions cause war

Religion can cause those divisions, but so can nationalism, ethnicity, race, class. Right now I'd say nationalism causes more war than religion.

Historically religion has been a major factor in war, but not so much recently outside of some branches of Islam.

[gcomeau]

5. I would propose you give some thought...

...to the difference between these two statements:

1. "Religion causes wars"

2. "Wars are caused by religion"

You appear to be confusing the two. Especially when you appear to be relying only on the military record of a nation that explicitly separates the church from the business of the government (like... war declarations) to try to illustrate your point.

[struggle4progress]

12. As a grammatical matter "X causes Y" and "Y are caused by X" are equivalent: if you

find a semantic difference, it is a difference that most people will not recognize -- and therefore, if you consider your distinction meaningful, you will need to find a different way top distinguish between whatever two different ideas you find there, since the grammatical distinction simply will not convey whatever semantical distinction you are trying to make

[gcomeau]

16. No, they are not equivalent.

"Religion causes wars" does not even passingly imply that religion is the only cause of wars.

"Wars are caused by religion" on the other hand carries an extremely strong connotation that that is the case.

Your entire post seems to be based on trying to claim the former statement is not true by disproving the latter. It's a bit of rhetorical sleight of hand. If you can find a bunch of wars that weren't caused by religion,, well then religion doesn't cause wars! Sorry, but no.

[struggle4progress]

20. Since I never used both phrase ("Religion causes wars" v "Wars are caused by religion"), it seems

strange for you to claim that I am trying to disprove "Wars are caused by religion" (which you say is the stronger statement) by failing to find evidence "Religion causes wars" (which you say is the weaker statement). But certainly anyone who believes what you say is the stronger statement should be able to find evidence for what you say is the weaker statement

I will recognize the logical distinction that you make between two distinct claims -- although personally I would not use the grammatical distinction that you use to distinguish the ideas, and I disavow the sneaky rhetorical intention you attribute to me: this leaves the original challenge untouched, whichever way you wish to address it

[gcomeau]

21. Sigh...

You used the phrase "Religion causes wars".

Then, after using it, your entire argument against it was based on trying to prove that some specific wars weren't caused by religion as if THAT somehow demonstrated that religion doesn't cause wars. Which is absurd. Which I proceeded to point out... although I clearly should have been a bit more blunt about it.

Following yet?

[struggle4progress]

22. I'm not interested in semantics: I'm interested in factual historical argument

[gcomeau]

25. Are you interested in logic? Rational thought?

To be as clear as I possibly can... your OP is B.S.

And that's not a matter of semantics. You demanding that someone either point to a specific war started by a specific secular nation in recent history or else the phrase "religion causes wars" is somehow rendered invalid is pure nonsense. I pointed that out relatively gently. Then I pointed it out more frankly. Now I'm (metaphorically speaking) clubbing you over the head with it. Your argument is absurd.

[struggle4progress]

31. To call my post BS, or suggest that I am irrational, does not qualify as historical evidence

It's childish. If you're interested in real logic, I'm happy to play: I've posted in this forum previously regarding logic; here is an example from last summer:

Can acceptable proofs result from an appeal to non-existent entities?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=214&topic_id=177753

The example given there is interesting because it concerns a fact about finite integers which cannot be proven in PA: the proof given involves a transfinite argument

But it's off-topic here

[gcomeau]

34. Because you're evidential criteria are bogus so I'm not playing.

One more time, insisting that if one specific secular nation hasn't started any overtly religiously motivated wars that somehow invalidates the idea that religion causes wars is absurd. It is the exact logical equivalent to me saying that if you can't show me one single murder committed by a person in the holding cell of the county lockup by my house that resulted from a robbery then robberies don't result in murders!

Sorry, but about 10% of all murders are a result of robberies. And I can't arbitrarily drastically restricted the sample size so that it didn't contain any of those 10% then pretend like that somehow proves they don't exist because MY sample says it's 0%!

[struggle4progress]

38. If you dislike focussing attention on the US, which other post-WWII conflicts do you regard as

being significantly motivated by religious considerations? Here is a long list:

Death Tolls for the Man-made Megadeaths of the Twentieth Century
http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatx.htm

I regard the accusation of cherry-picking as unfair, since the OP provided multiple different lists of conflicts to choose between -- and I did not tell you which list to use. It's not clear to me why you do not want the US to be considered, since it currently accounts for half of the world military budget. Moreover, despite its allegedly secular character, it is one of the most religious countfries the Western world. If you do not believe that having a nominally secular state effectively vaccinates against religiously-motivated warfare, then I see nothing would obviously prevent a nominally secular country with a large military budget and large religious population from engaging in warfare that really was religiously motivated, even if the official explanations were non-religious

But, hey, whatever, I just gave you another list, not restricted to the US: knock yourself out

[UnrepentantUnitarian]

6. Dogma doesn't have to be religious.

All it needs is self-righteousness on somebody's part. I guess it's a question of what we choose to call "religious." The root-meaning of religion (religio) means bringing or tying or binding together, not dividing. So, in that respect, none of it can be described as really religious, can it?

[Deep13]

11. Very true, but it usually is.

Once dogma becomes divinely ordered, even doubting it in ones mind becomes an act of rebelion against the universe.

[kwassa]

44. The two dogmas that killed the most were Communism and National Socialism

Russia, China, Nazi Germany

[Deep13]

47. Fine, religion is no better than Hitler or Stalin.

Have it your way.

Of course Hitler was a life-long Catholic (if a somewhat unorthodox one) and had a close relationship with the Vatican. To this day, the RC Church has not excommunicated one single member of the Nazi government including Hitler himself. Of course they only lifted their condemnation of Galileo in the 1990s and that was only grudgingly. Stalin's soldiers fought the Nazis and killed enough of them to claim the main credit for the destruction of Nazi Germany. Stalin was a seminary student himself and certainly understood how the church controlled people.

All dogma is bad. When one is not allowed to question anything, it is irrational and nothing good can come of it. Of course atheism is lack of belief, so it is not really accurate to equate belief in Bolshevist communism with atheism. Of course, at least the people knew that their dissatisfaction would not send them to hell, as the Orthodox church promised for disobedience to its anointed Tsar. One thing both of those regimes have in common is that they both burnt out rather quickly. Dogma doesn't last long without the threat of eternal damnation.

China relies on the traditional "mandate of heaven" of Confucianism for its legitimacy whatever its protestations of atheism are. And again, it is still belief in communism, not nonbelief.

No society ever went to war, tortured its citizens, oppressed its women or committed any other horrific act because they were too reasonable, too open-minded or too humane.

And even if you successfully demonstrated that atheism leads to evil behavior, it would AT WORST be just as bad as religion. And it would not change the fact that there is no god.

[struggle4progress]

64. If, as you claim, "Hitler was a life-long Catholic," you should be able to provide

some evidence of his supposed Catholicism, such as his church attendance on days of obligation, for example. So, what do you have, other than the fact that he was baptized as an infant?

[kwassa]

113. this is a pathetic argument

Hitler was not a church-going Catholic, didn't practice the faith in any way, shape, or form, and had no close relationship with the Vatican. Stalin was not religious at all, and the Communists oppressed all the religions in the countries they ruled. Communists were ACTIVELY ATHEISTIC.

They murdered because of their dogma, they killed vastly more than all the dead in all the religious wars throughout history.

Some atheists want to have it both ways. They want to make Hitler Christian, then claim atheism had nothing to do with the murders of the consciously atheistic Communists.

somewhere there might be people you can fool with that argument, but they would be idiots.

[TZ]

134. I've said this once and I'll say it again

Why don't you ask Holocaust survivors if they feel this wasn't a religous based attack.
You won't get answers you like I suspect, nor will they be polite.
If someone went out of their way to profane your church and your Holy Book its a religous attack but of course Hitler's anti-semitic behavior was not based in religon. I get very tired of this idiotic argument. Hitler and the Catholic Church were both behind the Holocaust.

[Goblinmonger]

101. Nazi Germany?

That's your example? You do know that he was doing what he did to the Jews because he wanted to right the wrongs of what happened to his Christ, right? Both the wrongs of Jesus' death at the hands of the Jews and the bastardization of the story of Christ by that Jew, Paul. It's in Mein Kampf and elsewhere. Pretty hard to separate out religion from Hitler.

[TZ]

133. Yes especially as he went out of his way

to destroy /profane Temples and Holy Books that Jews used. Nope no religious bigotry there...:sarcasm:

[baldguy]

8. How many atheists have started wars to convert unheathen believers?

The very idea is ludicrous.

On the other hand, religious wars of conversion are commonplace throughout human history.

[struggle4progress]

14. Please identify which conflicts (on the lists I provided) aimed at religious conversion

The reality-based community regards sweeping generalizations as bullshit and asks for a cold-eyed accurate look at historical facts

[baldguy]

27. The reality-based community recognizes that there have been more than 3 wars in human history.

And cherry-picking examples isn't a good way to argue your point.

But, just to humor you - any honest reading of history acknowledges that a major reason for the European invasion of North & South America was to spread their version of the Word of God. America's westward expansion - and the wars that resulted - was in part based on that very idea. Taming the wild Indian and introducing civilization to him was an inseparable part of taming the West. And if they couldn't be tamed, they were better off dead.

What allows humans to murder one another on a mass scale is the dehumanization of their enemies. Religion makes that a whole lot easier.

[struggle4progress]

30. If you had clicked the any of the links in the OP, you would have found more than three conflicts

to choose from, including military actions in Latin America and against Amerindians in North America

Vague appeals to "any honest reading of history" does not qualify as historical evidence. Provide some historical evidence

[baldguy]

49. Here is a partial list of wars that had a religious aspect to them:

Global War on Terror
2001-present

Iran-US cold war
1979-present

US-Cuba cold war
1960-present

Korea
1950-1953
cold war to present

Wars of Israel
1947-present

Yugoslav wars
1991-2001

Second Persian Gulf War
1990-1991

US-Soviet cold war
1947-1991

US wars in Central America
1989-1934
1952-1957
1981-1989

Vietnam
1959-1975

World War II
1939-1945

Spanish Civil War
1936-1939

World War I
1914-1918

Americas "New Imperialism"
~1870-1917

Philippine-American War
1899-1902

American Indian Wars
1622-1898

American Civil War
1861-1870

"Bleeding Kansas"
1854-1859

Barbary Wars
1801-1815


Many will note that this is a very short & incomplete list, nut for the sake of brevity I only included those conflicts the United States has been involved in.

[struggle4progress]

56. OK. You have provided a list -- but no real evidence to support it

[baldguy]

57. Don't you read? Don't you have *any* knowledge if the past?

If I said "George Washington was elected the first President of the United States in 1789," do I have provide you a link?

I guess every time you sit down to watch TV you need to pull out the manual to tell you how the buttons work. It's not that it's new - you've had it for several years. You just require proof that the buttons due what they say they do.

[struggle4progress]

59. Historical accuracy matters. Consider Bosnia (falling under your "Yugoslav wars" category):

I pick it because to be specific, one must examine something definitely and Bosnia also occurs on the list in laconicsax's posts #41, a list presented (like yours) without any evidence to support its claims

History of the war in Bosnia
Written May, 1996
Historical Background

... During World War II, armed groups claiming allegiance to various ethnic factions fought both against each other and against the Nazi occupiers. By 1945, almost 1 million Yugoslavs had lost their lives, most of them at the hands of other Yugoslavs. Croatian fascists (Ustashe) were the most notorious for killing Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, Communists, and political opponents, but Serb Chetniks were also responsible for many mass killings. The Communist-led Partisans fought against both groups and were victorious (with Allied support) at the war's end. The Partisan leader, Josip Broz (Tito), ruled the country as a one-party socialist state ...

Under Communist rule, it was a serious crime to openly express ethnic aspirations of any kind.

... With the final collapse of Communism in the 1980s, the restive population began seeking solutions to provide economic and political stability in a post- Cold War world. Unfortunately, the solution promoted by Serb and Croat extremists in this time of crisis was ethnic nationalism. Serbia's Communist Party leader, Slobodan Milosevic, began pandering to Serb nationalism, and quickly became the unchallenged ruler of Serbia. Through his control of the party apparatus and control of the media, he was able to become the most powerful figure in Yugoslavia ...

Milosevic's attempts to seize control of the federal government and his repressive tactics in Kosovo drove the newly elected non-Communist governments of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia to seek independence ...

http://www.friendsofbosnia.org/edu_bos.html

April 1996 | Peaceworks No. 8
Serbian Nationalism and the Origins of the Yugoslav Crisis
Vesna Pesic

... The crisis in the former Yugoslavia, characterized first by the political disintegration of the country and then by its descent into full-scale war to alter republican borders, cannot be understood without an analysis of the crisis that broke out in Serbia in the mid-1980s. This crisis had its origins in the powerful nationalist movement under the leadership of Serbia's Communist party. Initially, it sought the restoration of the Yugoslav federation based on the authority of the Communist party, but it soon grew into a movement for the creation of a "Greater Serbia" ...

http://www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/early/pesic/pesic3.html

Bosnia and Herzegovina

... In Dec. 1991, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence from Yugoslavia and asked for recognition by the European Union (EU). In a March 1992 referendum, Bosnian voters chose independence, and President Izetbegovic declared the nation an independent state. Unlike the other former Yugoslav states, which were generally composed of a dominant ethnic group, Bosnia was an ethnic tangle of Muslims (44%), Serbs (31%), and Croats (17%), and this mix contributed to the duration and savagery of its fight for independence.

Both the Croatian and Serbian presidents had planned to partition Bosnia between themselves. Attempting to carve out their own enclaves, the Serbian minority, with the help of the Serbian Yugoslav army, took the offensive and laid siege, particularly on Sarajevo, and began its ruthless campaigns of ethnic cleansing, which involved the expulsion or massacre of Muslims. Croats also began carving out their own communities. By the end of Aug. 1992, rebel Bosnian Serbs had conquered over 60% of Bosnia ...

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107349.html

So, in summary, until the end of WWII, there had been substantial and intolerant ethic/nationalist movements in the region. The partisan victory and Tito's consolidation of power led to political suppression of these movements, some of which had been openly allied with the Nazis. But forty-five years later, when the Soviet bloc collapsed, it was still possible to eignite the old ethnic/nationalist sentiments. Reigniting those sentiments was an attractive power-ploy for certain groups -- and so, by systematic media propaganda, ethic/nationalist hate was deliberately reignited. If you wish to argue otherwise, it is up to you to provide specific historical evidence, rather than merely claiming I must not be able to operate my TV

[baldguy]

61. You think there was no religious component to the conflict in Bosnia at all?

What are you looking for? The Crusader Knight out on the battlefield with his Bible open, searching Isaiah for a specific passage telling him where to shove his spear? Oh yea, since the Templars made a profit on the side during the Crusades, they couldn't have been real religious wars.

:eyes:

[struggle4progress]

63. What? no evidence from you? no links? nothing but noise?

[baldguy]

66. The Ottoman Turks who marched into Constantinople in 1453 were really SPACE ALIENS!

I'VE GOT DA LINKY ON THE INTERWEBS TO PROOVE IT!!

But you still can't answer a simple question. If the answer negates your premise, you ignore it.

[struggle4progress]

68. uh ... ok ... backing away now ... nodding & smiling

[baldguy]

80. I've been very patient with your idiocy. I'll try one more time.

Not that I expect a real reply, but whatever....

The internet is chock full of bullshit, therefor you should provide links for only clarification of proofs you develop yourself. They should not and cannot be used as the proof themselves.

You can post any link to support any argument on any subject, but being able to post a link is no match for a real understanding of that subject.

I haven't provided links, because the assertions I've made are self-evident. At least those who know & understand history.

The fact is that the war in Bosnia was based religion, because for 500 yrs since the Turkish invasions of the Balkans that region has been fragmented & conflicted - i.e. balkanized - to it's own detriment. Every town and village had it's Muslim Bosnians, it's Catholic Croats and it's Orthodox Christian Serbs. They've lived side by side, traded with one another, even intermarried - and even sometimes united against off outsiders, Catholics from the West, Muslims from the East & Serbs from the south. Yet, even as all these groups have come together to form the same ethnic stock, each community has maintained it's own traditions and it's own religious identity. And they maintained their animosities as well.

Whatever empire they've been part of over the centuries worked to keep a lid on these tribal religious animosities, but after the fall & breakup of Yugoslavia that lid was gone. The only real differentiation between the communities was religion. It wasn't ethnicity - they'd been having children with one another for twenty generations. It wasn't about class - they'd been living in a communist country for 40 yrs. The country dissolved along religious lines, and Serb militias began the so-called "ethnic cleansing" aimed primarily at Bosnian Muslims.

Again, you make the mistake of assuming that the Bosnian War was an ethnic conflict simply because the lazy US media stumbled upon the term "ethnic cleansing" to describe what the Serb militias were doing to the Bosnian Muslims. Their actions had nothing to do with their victims' ethnicity; it was about their religion. Errors like this stem from merely reading something without understanding it.

[struggle4progress]

83. I outlined the standard account for you. Evidently you don't bother to

read links: the Pesic piece is rather good. Here is another useful link, from Australia's Parliamentary Research Service, which provides essentially the same account, but in more detail:

The Collapse of Yugoslavia: Background and Summary
David Anderson
Research Paper No 14 1995-96
<pdf:> http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/RP/1995-96/96rp14.pdf

A reason for doubting your religious analysis (for which, I again note, you provide no links) is that population surveys c. 1985 indicated that persons who identified themselves culturally as Orthodox (namely, the group you identify as Serbs) were much less religious than persons that identified themselves culturally as Catholic or Muslim: but it was the advocates of a greater Serbia that attacked Bosnia -- naturally, one would not expect the less religious group to attack the more religious group under the leadership of a nominal atheist, if the conflict were genuinely religious in character

[baldguy]

86. I say you shouldn't post links to prove your arguments, and you post a link in reply.

Thank you for living up to my expectations.

[struggle4progress]

89. yah, me proud say: "make many year now, me no follow orders good!" eom

[baldguy]

92. And you think; if you see it on the Internet, it's so.

No independent thought is needed. A parrot is more interesting.

[Sandrine for you]

28. nt

other place

[Deep13]

9. It's not that simple.

It is not so much that religion causes war as it is that it gives leaders a way of making way acceptable. First of all, Romans in the Bible says not to question the government because civil leaders were put in office by god. Further, the enemy can always be made to look sub human because they reject god's will. Finally, it is impossible to disobey divine will conscienciously. If Christ or Allah or whomever says ones religion must be spread at sword point, then that pretty much ends debate on the subject. So while the Crusades may have had causes besides religion, it is inconceivable that they would have occurred without it. Likewise, if not for the Japanese's Buddist imperial cult, it is unlikely that millions of young men would have been willing to march into China and do what they did. Even now Evangelical elements in the military are insisting to soldiers that Christ is at war with Islam.

[struggle4progress]

18. So it is your view that "Japan's Buddhist imperial cult" led to WWII?

[Deep13]

24. Well, that Hitler guy had something to do with it.

We know the events that put him in charge. It was the Germans' irrational belief in him and some sort of fair-skinned destiny, and their willingness to blame a religious minority group for their troubles, that gave A.H. his power.

So while the Japanese had imperial ambitions regardless, it was Japan's unique brand of Buddism and the cult of the emperor that gave it its popular support. A leader can only lead if others will do what he says and religion is a powerful tool for that.

Of course this is all beside the issue of whether or not god exists.

[struggle4progress]

33. Let's pursue one idea at a time. Exactly how, in your mind, is Japanese Buddhism responsible

for the Japanese military expansionism of the WWII era? What specific historical facts can you provide to support your idea?

[Sandrine for you]

45. I got a course on the philosophy of Nishida Kitaro a couple of years ago....

And for what I understand, The mixture of Hegel, who was really a totalitarian and Zen make a really combustion-able thinking, an dangerous absolutism mixed with Uris and comptent for everything that is not japonese. And it was really present in all the university and the thinker's community. But hey, that's an interpretation.

[struggle4progress]

62. As he is buried at a Rinzai Zen temple with Suzuki and similar Zen internationalists,

he seems to be an unlikely warmonger, and I am skeptical of any effort to attribute to his thought the Japanese attempt at empire: if you want to make such a claim, more evidence is needed

[Deep13]

46. How is a hammer responsible for the construcion of a house?

The Japanese government used religious fanaticism to control the minds of their soldiers. If you want more, you'll have to go to the library. For the most part, history is not on-line.

[struggle4progress]

65. Of course, plenty of history is on-line. As the official religion of imperial Japan was Shinto,

your claim, that the role of Buddhism in the Japanese quest for empire is an obvious as the role of a hammer in constructing a house, is misleading at best

[rainy]

10. Leaders use religion or patriotism to convince it people to go to war, which

ever one will convince the public that war is necessary.

[struggle4progress]

19. Provide some specific historical details using a conflict in one of the lists I provided

[rainy]

26. Every soldier believes they are fighting for their country or some noble cause.

I'm not saying that patriotism is the cause of war just how leaders get people to fight them.

[struggle4progress]

35. So you would count "patriotism" as a "religion"?

[rainy]

51. I'm saying that leaders use whatever it takes to convince their people to kill others

Osama uses religion to keep his followers willing to kill, USA uses patriotism.

[Goblinmonger]

102. How about the recent war

against those nasty Muslims? Or are you ruling that out of your set for convenience, too?

[struggle4progress]

109. If you regard (say) the Iraq invasion as primarily religious, feel free to make a careful argument

[provis99]

15. Population pressure causes wars

or competition for scarce resources, however you want to put it. What religion does is it provides the excuse, or pretext for wars, since saying you're going to war to slay infidels sounds much nicer than saying you're going to kill people to get their stuff.

[Sandrine for you]

29. "Président Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God'

George Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician in an interview to be broadcast by the BBC later this month.

Mr Bush revealed the extent of his religious fervour when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egpytian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I am driven with a mission from God'. God would tell me, 'George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan'. And I did. And then God would tell me 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq'. And I did."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

[struggle4progress]

32. And so, in your mind, Bush's claim is the major reason for current US military involvement there?

Be as specific and concrete as possible

[Sandrine for you]

37. Don't have a lot of time for now, but

Yes, I think religion was at the core of it. It's not the only reason: american are clever than that. But I suspect that all that bullshit MDW was just that: bullshit. I think that the right christians really feel the humiliation of 9/11. And they really want to exposed the power of their christian country. Afghanistan(remember the religious first name of the operation ) was not enough, something really bigger had to be destroy.

Just look at the right wing blogs of the time: they really want to kill some "musuls". The same people became hugged supporters of the Israel actions.

Some of your generals explicitly tell that for them it's a crusade.

Your President tell it.

The war got his best supporter from the religious people, and for what I see (but maybe it's just an idiosyncrasy) his best opponent from the atheist.

Also, but this is a philosophical point of view, the nihilist position of the christian religion help to kill someone, it make the other as someone who have nothing in common with you.

I don't think that every-body in the Bush administration think that way but they exploited it (usually the elite is a little bit clever than the average, but maybe not Bush). When they speak about Saddam (who was an atheist, ironically), their supporter hear : kill some "musuls".

So yes for me they are two motivations: greed and religion. And I can't say who's the first.

Sorry for my poor english. Edit for that a lot.

[struggle4progress]

58. There is no question that one can easily find in the US some people who hate others

for their religion. Since those same people also tend to hate others for all manner of differences (they hate people with different colored skin, they hate people who speak different languages, they hate people from foreign countries, they hate people who don't share their political ideas, and so on), I find it difficult to separate out the various hatreds that motivate them. Many of those were screaming that the US should attack the Middle East after the Oklahoma City bombing -- because they were quite sure some foreigners must be involved, even though all the facts pointed to home-grown terror groups

That the US would go to war, as a result of the 11 Sep 01 WTC-Pentagon attack, was immediately obvious on the day of the attack: I heard from person after person that day that the US was now at war, even before anyone really knew anything about attackers. Of course, the immediately hate-mongers came out in full-force, and Ann Coulter famously wrote "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity" -- but the reaction was not uniform admiration for that view: the local newspaper, where I then lived, immediately stopped running her column. Anti-Islamic prejudice still doesn't seem to me as good an explanation of the US response to the WTC attack as pure nationalist sentiment, compounded by fear and anger. Of course, I may be wrong: if there is a careful examination of the political dynamics of the US decision to invade Afghanistan, that identifies religion as a major cause, I'd like to see it. It is often said that attack on WTC-Pentagon was religiously motivated -- and I suppose that might actually be true, though it is less clear why the targets of a religiously-motivated attack would be the pre-eminent symbols of US military and economic hegemony -- but even if the WTC-Pentagon attack were religiously motivated, the almost uniform reaction around the world condemnation, independent of religion, which is not at all what one should expect if religion generally encouraged such attacks

Similarly, regarding to the US invasion of Iraq: the propaganda justifying the invasion was almost uniformly "all fear all the time" -- Saddam has nuclear weapons! Saddam has biological weapons! Saddam has drones that can attack the US!. Essentially none of that was religious in character. It is true that one can easily find idiotic statements by Bush, that appeal to religion as a reason to invade Iraq -- but the Bush administration gave dozens of different and conflicting reasons to attack Iraq, which suggests that the Administration was calculating how to appeal to a hundred or so different segments of the population, aiming different justifications at different population segments. Since Iraq is a major oil supplier, since Cheney's energy task force carefully examined Iraq oil field maps long before the invasion, since the US voided all Iraq's existing oil contracts at the time of the invasion, since developing an oil contract law was among the Bush administration "benchmarks" for Iraq, and since in recent years Iraqi oil has been loaded unmetered into tankers for export to the rest of the world, "religion" may not be the most natural explanatiuon of the US invasion of Iraq

[cosmik debris]

36. I'll bet the Old Testament or the Book of Mormon

could shed some light here.

But it is really irrelevant.

Your mind is made up, your feelings are hurt, and nothing will change that.

You may now resume your tantrum.

[struggle4progress]

39. You promise to shed light -- yet shed none

[cosmik debris]

40. I made no such promise.

I'm already convinced that your premise is full-o-shit.

I'm equally convinced that you will never admit that any one other than you could be right.

I only posted that hint to tease you with the obvious.

You know it's there, but you will never admit it.

:rofl:

[laconicsax]

41. Since you asked nicely, here's a list. I think you're familiar with the source.

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatz.htm

Scrolling down to the 'religious conflict' section and reading the criteria:

Generally speaking, in most of the following cases, religion is both the stated cause of the killing and the only substantive difference between the two opposing groups. Obviously, there would be many additional conflicts where religion is just one of several divisions.
(emphasis mine)

This sounds like a good starting point, and as you suggested elsewhere, I'll limit it to post WWII conflicts.
-Algeria, 1992-2002
-Bosnia, 1992-1995
-Croatia, 1991-1992
-India, 1947-present (Muslim v. Hindu)
-India, 1982-1991 (Sikh uprising)
-Iran, 1979-present
-Iraq, 1991-1992 (Shia rebellion)
-Lebanon 1975-1990
-Moluccas 1999-present
-Northern Ireland (Started as a political/territorial dispute and is sustained through religious divisions)
-Israel 1948-present (Started as a religious war, territory and political divisions help sustain it as a secondary factor)
-Al Qaeda and Islamist terrorism, operating under a banner of holy war against nonbelievers.
-Nigeria 1990-present

[struggle4progress]

60. For definiteness, I have considered the case of Bosnia upthread ..

in my post #59

Although you do appear to cite from a link I provided, I provided that link merely as a convenient list of conflicts, not as an authoritative source on the conflicts themselves or their proper interpretations. Whoever claims Bosnia, as an example of a conflict primarily motivated by religious considerations, has some obligation to provide some evidence to justify that claim -- which you do not do

[laconicsax]

69. I suppose that you are the ultimate authority on what constitues a "proper interpretation."

This thread, the thread I suspect most recently inspired it, and the above subthread about Bosnia that you reference all point to the conclusion that you have decided that religion plays absolutely no consequential role in propelling people to violence and summarily dismiss any statements contrary to your position.

I won't bother looking up resources available online to support the claims in your list because it is fairly obvious that no matter the evidence I provide, you will stubbornly cling to your belief that religion has no part to play and no doubt trot out evidence that other motives may also be at work, allowing for the "proper interpretation" of the conflict as entirely non-religious.

I wish you well.

[struggle4progress]

70. You claimed the Bosnian conflict was primarily religious in nature: I provided (with links)

some history and a reasonable interpretation of that history, suggesting that religion was not the cause

If you hold that claims should be supported by material evidence and argumentation, then you ought to provide evidence to support your belief (say) that the Bosnian war was primarily motivated by religion: this, for some reason, you are unwilling to do, preferring to attack me for providing such evidence and argumentation

Enjoy :hi:

[laconicsax]

105. You provided the list. I mearly read it back to you. Now you want to challenge the list.

By providing the list at http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstatx.htm, it's contents are yours to defend. It is not my responsibility to provide documentary evidence to support information that you provide. If I provide a link in discussion it is my responsibility to attest to its veracity and provide evidence to support its claims if need be. Since you provided the link, it is your responsibility to attest its veracity and provide evidence to support its claims. If you deny the accuracy of the list, then perhaps you should not have provided it.

Furthermore, it is not my 'belief' that the Bosnian war was primarily motivated by religion. I have no 'beliefs' on the matter and tend to avoid holding 'beliefs' in general. I accept the supposition that religion was a motivating factor in the conflict based on the prevalence of ethnic cleansing along religious divisions.

Since you're hung up on Bosnia, I take it you stand by the other items in your list as being examples of religiously motivated conflicts.

-Algeria, 1992-2002
-Croatia, 1991-1992
-India, 1947-present (Muslim v. Hindu)
-India, 1982-1991 (Sikh uprising)
-Iran, 1979-present
-Iraq, 1991-1992 (Shia rebellion)
-Lebanon 1975-1990
-Moluccas 1999-present
-Northern Ireland (Started as a political/territorial dispute and is sustained through religious divisions)
-Israel 1948-present (Started as a religious war, territory and political divisions help sustain it as a secondary factor)
-Al Qaeda and Islamist terrorism, operating under a banner of holy war against nonbelievers.
-Nigeria 1990-present

As this list of conflicts is taken directly from a source that you provided, I bear no responsibility for its accuracy.

[struggle4progress]

129. I apologize if I was unclear. I will explain slowly what I was trying to ask.

It is this: can anyone make a reasonable case that wars really motivated by religion? Since records are lost with time, it is reasonable to restrict attention to more recent conflicts, and to avoid an enormous list of conflicts I proposed in the OP looking at 20th century US wars, although I have also suggested in this thread that a poster (who objected to using the US as a test case) could examine post-WWII world conflicts. In the OP, I provided various links to lists of conflicts, primarily as an aid to anyone who actually wanted to examine some of them

You have noticed that at least one of the links I provided asserts (but without any evidence) that certain conflicts were primarily religious: since I find such claims unconvincing without evidence, I continue to ask for evidence -- which you are either unwilling or unable to provide

[Goblinmonger]

103. Nice backpedal.

I'm impressed.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

125. Wow, you really are flying blind here.

[Sandrine for you]

42. Is there so kind of a winner in that challenge ?

:crazy:

[cosmik debris]

43. He has a rationalization for any example you offer

You presented an example where the Commander in Chief said that he was called by god. But even that won't convince him. He will make up some reason why that is not religion or it is not war or something else absurd.

It's all a game, smile. There are no winners.

[Sandrine for you]

50. Merde alors, I hate when they are no clear winner,

But he did not say anything about my exposure. Maybe he got a life outside of DU. Or maybe he don't like the way I express myself. I give him the profit of the doubt.

[cosmik debris]

52. He will return.

And he will be faced with the fact that religion does cause war.

And he will create a fantasy that makes it seem as if you are wrong.

But it is only his fantasy. That's all.

[Sandrine for you]

53. Will see. You seem to be used to have argument with him. I'm not.

But just for my personal education, what do you think about my interpretation of the Iraq war ? I'm not an american, I can't pretend that I really got an inside view. So I want to know if you think what I said have some reality for you.

[cosmik debris]

54. I believe you are correct.

I believe Bush was speaking truthfully when he said what he said.

I have known that poster for over 4 years. He has no surprises for me.

[Sandrine for you]

55. Thank's just want to be sure. nt.

[anonymous171]

48. Class war tanscends religious/racial/everything else based conflict. nt

[Dorian Gray]

71. I don't at all believe

that religion is the cause of war, though I do believe that it is used as justification for war by those who desire to perpetuate war.

[Meshuga]

72. I agree with you

Religion is a nice tool for those who desire to perpetuate war but not always the cause.

[Dorian Gray]

73. I like when we're in agreement

(which is quite often!!) :)

[Meshuga]

74. That's very true

:-)

[cosmik debris]

77. "not always the cause" -- that was not the challenge

The challenge was to provide an example of when religion DID cause war.

For example, Deuteronomy Chapter 20, Verse 17

But thou shalt utterly destroy them: the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee;

That is a clear cut example of war caused by religion.

And when GWB told us that he attacked Iraq because God told him to, that was pretty clear cut too.

There are examples of war caused by religion, not all wars, but certainly enough to prove the point.

[Meshuga]

97. One would have to turn a blind eye to say that holy wars don't exist.

Holy wars are not myths. One could argue that a supposedly holy war had other causes and that these wars were not religious but political or had some other nature. That is fine. But some people try to apply this argument to every holy war and claim that something else was the cause. But making a claim that religion never caused war is wishful thinking.

[TZ]

91. not always no.

But this poster is saying that it never is. Come on the whole middle east thing is based in long standing religious conflict.

[Meshuga]

98. Like you said in your post #88

One would have to cherry pick data to say religion never caused wars.

[Jim__]

79. Are you denying that there have been religious wars?

Or, are you denying that religion causes war in 21st century America?

Some examples of wars that are considered to have been religious - from wikipedia:

A religious war is a war caused by religious differences. It can involve one state with an established religion against another state with a different religion or a different sect within the same religion, or a religiously motivated group attempting to spread its faith by violence, or to suppress another group because of its religious beliefs or practices. The Muslim Conquests, the French Wars of Religion, the Crusades, and the Reconquista are frequently cited historical examples.

[baldguy]

81. Yes, thats exacty what he's denying.

[cosmik debris]

82. And if you contradict him, he will claim

That YOU are misinterpreting history.

[struggle4progress]

84. It is a frequent theme in this forum that religion is the root cause of many human tragedies,

among which war is regularly mentioned

The alleged "proofs" of this "fact" are typically one-line statements such as "In WWII, German military belt buckles said God is with us" (as if people joined the German army voluntarily because of the belt buckle) or "The Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople" (though, in fact, the Turks made essentially no effort to convert the conquered and made considerable effort to make accommodations for the religious preferences of the conquered)

Although there is no doubt that people have found all manner of stupid excuses for slaughtering others, normal humans usually regard killing other folk as both unpleasant and risky -- and so one typically expects would-be murderers will require a sufficiently genuine motive for the murders: there may be exceptions, but most people throughout history have not gratuitously slaughtered on whim

So the point of my question is this: if religion really is a major motive for war, one should be able to demonstrate that, not with a cheap off-hand one-liner but by careful examination of facts; or if religion really is a common motive for war (even if it is not the sole motive in every case), one should be able to find at least good examples in any sufficiently long list -- which is the reason for the restriction

So far, responses in this thread show: (1) people do not like having their assumptions questioned, and respond with insults; and (2) when people in this forum say "religion causes war" what they really mean is something like "I can show you a religious person who went to war" or "I can show you examples of some religious-sounding stuff associated with a war (even if that had other causes)"

[cosmik debris]

87. Example of military intervention based on religion

On the bone-chilling morning of December 29, devotees of the newly created Ghost Dance religion made a lengthy trek to the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota to seek protection from military apprehension. Members of the Miniconjou Sioux (Lakota) tribe led by Chief Big Foot and the Hunkpapa Sioux (Lakota) followers of the recently slain charismatic leader, Sitting Bull, attempted to escape arrest by fleeing south through the rugged terrain of the Badlands. There, on the snowy banks of Wounded Knee Creek (Cankpe Opi Wakpala), nearly 300 Lakota men, women, and children -- old and young -- were massacred in a highly charged, violent encounter with U.S. soldiers.

<snip>

Although it did bring an end to the Ghost Dance religion, it did not, however, represent the demise of the Lakota culture, which still thrives today.

[baldguy]

93. That's not acceptable.

You didn't provide a LINK! Only links to other web pages with other people's thoughts & ideas constitute prooof!

[cosmik debris]

94. I'm waiting for him to denigrate the scholarship of the piece

before I tell him which university I provided it.

Who knows, it may be his alma mater.

:)

[baldguy]

96. What is "alma mater"? Sounds French.

Do you have a link for the definition?

[cosmik debris]

99. I just made it up to sound as if I was intellectual. n/t

[baldguy]

100. .

:rofl:

[struggle4progress]

127. The Ghost Dance is interesting. But it is unclear to me exactly what you claim about it.

http://www.canku-luta.org.nyud.net:8090/images/1868.jpg
http://www.canku-luta.org/PineRidge/laramie_treaty.html

Control of Dakota/Lakota lands was a real issue in the latter half of the 19th century: the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie was ignored after gold was discovered in the Black Hills, and the US in 1889 abrogated the Treaty completely, stripping away most of the so-called "Great Sioux reservation" and partitioning the remaining lands into several smaller "reservations"

The Ghost Dance arises briefly in 1890 in the context of land-theft by a larger group having superior technology at its disposal. The Dance apparently had both religious and military interpretations, since it promised immunity from bullets, and it terrified some agents of the US government who saw it:

... A desperate Indian Agent at Pine Ridge wired his superiors in Washington, "Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy ... We need protection and we need it now. The leaders should be arrested and confined at some military post until the matter is quieted, and this should be done now" ... http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/knee.htm

... At Standing Rock, the authorities feared that Sitting Bull, still revered as a spiritual leader, would join the Ghost Dancers as well, and they sent 43 Lakota policemen to bring him in. Before dawn on December 15, 1890, the policemen burst into Sitting Bull's cabin and dragged him outside ... http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/sittingbull.htm

The massacre at Wounded Knee occurred about two weeks after Sitting Bull was shot and killed

... Under cover of the night on December 23, a band of 350 people left the Miniconjou village on the Cheyenne River to begin a treacherous 150-mile, week-long trek through the Badlands to reach the Pine Ridge Agency. Although Chief Big Foot was aged and seriously ill with pneumonia, his group traversed the rugged, frozen terrain of the Badlands in order to reach the protection of Chief Red Cloud who had promised them food, shelter, and horses. It is reported that both Big Foot and Red Cloud wanted peace. On December 28, the group was surrounded by Major Samuel M. Whitside and the Seventh Calvary (the old regiment of General George Custer) ... http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKmscr.html

The Ghost Dance seems to represent an expression of resistance, cast in religious language, and the resulting US military action seems to be motivated by the intent to crush all resistance by general slaughter, not merely an attack on religious ideas. Of course, the decision to reduce a culture to irrelevance might be expressed by an attack on that culture's religious symbols (as, for example, when the faces of four presidents are carved into a mountain the local population traditionally regarded as a sacred site) -- but that does not mean that the underlying conflict is religious: in this case, the real issue appears to have been Who will control the land?. Conflict in such a context seems inevitable, especially when the issue is resolved by deceit and armed robbery

[cosmik debris]

128. Boy! You did miss the point.

You seem to have concentrated on the ritual rather than the religion.

The The military government made the Ghost Dance Religion illegal. But since they couldn't outlaw belief, the military killed all the members of that religion.

The war began when the believers refused to give up their religion.

The war ended when the religion was extinguished.

It was a war about religion.

[struggle4progress]

131. Or perhaps some other detail is critical? After all, there was a history

of shooting down parties of Amerindians, regardless of age or gender, when they flew white flags

This happened, for example, at Sand Creek:

... Some years previous he had been presented with a fine American flag by Colonel Greenwood, a commissioner, who had been sent out there. Black Kettle ran this American flag up to the top of his lodge, with a small white flag tied right under it, as he had been advised to do in case he should meet with any troops out on the prairies ... http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/four/sandcrk.htm

And it seems to have happened again at Wounded Knee:

... Big Foots band hoisted a white flag, but the army apprehended the Indians, forcing them to the bank of Wounded Knee Creek. There, four large Hotchkiss cannons had been menacingly situated atop both sides of the valley overlooking the encampment, ready to fire upon the Indians ... http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKmscr.html

What justifies focus on religion as the cause of the massacre?

[cosmik debris]

132. One more time for the slow pokes.

The only reason they were running was that they were members of an illegal religion.

The only reason that the Cavalry was chasing them was that they were members of an illegal religion.

[TZ]

88. Only America has gone to war in the last century?

Nice cherry picking of data. Does the middle east mean nothing to you?
What a dishonest post.

[cosmik debris]

90. It is as if he had a bag of green marbles

And hypothesized that blue marbles don't exist because there are none in that bag.

But don't expect him to respond, he typically ignores all evidence that is difficult to dispute.

[laconicsax]

107. This post is the R/T equivalent to Adnan Oktar's 10 trillion lira evolution challenge.

What intermediate forms? Show me a half-ficus, half-squirrel or a half-jellyfish, half-motorcycle!
What religious wars? Show me a conflict where religion was continuously reaffirmed by all participants as the only motivating factor!

[struggle4progress]

130. I'll assume you didn't read the thread. See (for example) the exchanges #7/#23 and #34/#38.

[Jokerman]

95. The cause of a war is not usually that easy to define.

I think it's safe to say that most wars are the result of many factors.

Did slavery cause the American Civil War or was it a fight for state's rights?

Did the explosion of the Maine cause the Spanish American War or was it the frenzy caused by newspapers of the day?

Did the destruction of the World Trade Center cause the latest wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or was it the religious zealotry of the Bush administration?

The answers to all these questions are open to debate and interpretation.

Religion itself may not actually cause a war but, like many other factors, it certainly can be used to manipulate a population into supporting a war.

[Bill McBlueState]

104. This thread doesn't seem to be leading anyone to "shut up"

So perhaps "put up or shut up" isn't the best way to describe the challenge.

[Meshuga]

106. It is not.

And why should anyone "shut up" anyway in this "put up or shut up" challenge?

Last time I checked this is a message board. If someone is tired of reading a certain position he/she can freely choose not to participate or just ignore the posts.

[baldguy]

108. Or ignore the posts & continue to argue.

[ZombieHorde]

111. Don't the ME terrorists claim to kill for Allah? nt

[laconicsax]

123. I'm told that's a misinterpretation of the facts. nt.

[ZombieHorde]

124. Do mean the terrorist are inaccurately translated,

or are the terrorists lying?

[laconicsax]

126. Based on what I've been told in the past few days, they're lying.

You see, when Islamist groups commit acts of terrorism, it because of American imperialism or some other political grievance. It certainly isn't because of fervent belief that the Koran (and Allah by extension) commands them to kill nonbelievers and if they manage to get themselves killed in the process then they spend eternity in everlasting paradise. It also certainly isn't because they see the presence of nonbelievers in areas where Islam is the state religion as cause to wage holy war as dictated in their holy book.

And to think--I used to think that when someone claimed responsibility for a terrorist act and they gave a religious reason, I believed them. What a fool I was.

:sarcasm:

[Occam Bandage]

114. None of them. It is fortunate that America has not launched a religious war,

and I would credit that to its essentially secular/rational political structure and demographic heterogeneity. Had someone said "Religion causes war in the United States," your post would certainly be reasonable.

It is rather unfortunate that a world beyond the United States exists. However, since it does, we should probably consider humanity at large when discussing traits and aspects of humanity at large.

[cosmik debris]

115. The US Army massacred EVERY member of the Ghost Dance religion

Including their children. And 20 people got Medals Of Honor for that Massacre at Wounded Knee.

They tried to make the religion illegal, but failed to stop the Ghost Dancers.

So they killed them.

So, yes. Religion does cause war in the United States.

[Occam Bandage]

116. Because they believed the Ghost Dance was politically subversive and prevented assimilation,

with a healthy helping of genocidal racism thrown in. Religion was a proximate factor at best; for it to be a war "caused by religion," I'd say that it would have to be a war in which religion was the primary and ultimate cause of conflict, which is clearly not the case in the Indian Wars.

[cosmik debris]

117. LOL!

Always an excuse. Always.

[Occam Bandage]

118. Perhaps you always find that people have "an excuse" because your arguments aren't very good.

Declaring that religion causes or ends war is usually a faulty oversimplification. Religion is much like language: it's a universal human creation, it's closely bound to societies, and it's often involved in politics, but claiming that it causes world events to happen is almost always an oversimplification. I think religions tend to be a reflection of a society rather than a driving force behind societies.

[cosmik debris]

119. Yep it's always someone else's fault

Religion is never to blame.

:rofl:

[Occam Bandage]

122. No, I think there are a few cases in history where

wars were launched with religion as a primary motivating factor. I think the Islamic Conquests and the Reconquista were largely fueled by religious fervor, for instance. I also think that the Albigensian Crusade is an interesting case, and is something of a reversal of the norm: I believe it was launched as a religious war against the Cathar, and quickly became a purely political struggle designed to achieve French control of Occitania.

[baldguy]

120. "We as believers have been promised that we will spend an eternity with God."

We as believers have been promised that we will spend an eternity with God. Last Saturday I was doing a men's conference in Fredricksburg, Virginia and I was praying during the worship service and something dawned on me and it was the Holy Spirit speaking to me. And the Holy Spirit said, "this is what I want you to share with My men today", and I'm going to share it with you and this is what it is: One day, we're going to stand before the gates of Heaven. Some of us want to be able to walk up there in a white robe and we want to sing Abba Father and Amazing Grace and we want to say to the Lord, "I worshiped You." But I want you to think about this: Heres the way I want to enter the gates of Heaven. I want to come skidding in there on all fours. I want to be slipping and sliding and I want to hit the gates of heaven with a bang. And when I stand up and I stand before Christ, I want there to be blood on my knees and my elbows. I want to be covered with mud. And I want to be standing there with a ragged breast plate of righteousness. And a spear in my hand. And I want to say, "Look at me, Jesus. I've been in the battle. I've been fighting for you." Ladies and gentlemen, put your armor on and get into battle. God bless you.

- Lieutenant General William G. Boykin, United States Army, 10 April 2008

Who says America never launched a religious war?

[Occam Bandage]

121. My claim is that religion's role in war is almost always a post-hoc justification for

a struggle launched for secular reasons. This is a perfect case of that.