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Dean Esmay, who name is known in the blogosphere (although I am embarassed to admit that I did not know that he has a weblog), wrote to me saying
Hi. Read your comments on No Watermelons Allowed. I found them thoughtful. I'm certainly willing to comment publicly, but his article is so spot-on that I see little need to do so. One of his comments that does not need correcting (for it is already correct), nor even really amplification, but that certainly deserves repetition
Yes, religions have sometimes been the cause of wars. Sometimes, ethnic conflicts have been the cause of wars. But I don't see how anyone who views the vast sweep of human history can deny one salient fact: wars are almost always about conquest or money, not religion. Sometimes religion is injected into the equation. But I submit that, more often than not, religion is either peripheral or nonexistant in most human conflicts. Which is so, I would say. Very few genuinely religious wars have been fought; indeed, I would put the initial Islamic expansion through the Middle East under the Rightly-Guided Caliphs into that category as an almost unique experience (yes, I know that "almost unique" is an abomination). Religion has often been the pretext for wars (the opening phase of the Thirty Years' War, for example, although that could also be seen as a dynastic contest between Habsburgs and Wittelsbachs), but seldom the actual motivating force. ...save for the First Church of Marx and Lenin. I do differ slightly with Esmay's saying
Then of course there's Communism--an officially atheistic form of government. You can't have a higher wall of separation of church and state. You also can't point to regimes that were more bloody and repressive. Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Kim--these names all loom large in the history of mankind's bloodiest killers. And mankind's most rabid secularists. In fact, there's damned little difference between Marxism-Leninism and other religions. It has a body of scriptures, a major and some minor saints, an wicked apostate, and a group of adherents educated (or perhaps "indoctrinated" is a better word) in its theology, but incapable of interacting in any meaningful way with unbelievers. The Marxist religion has certainly been the twentieth century's bloodiest. Some Islamist fanatics may wish to usurp that title in the 21st century, but they haven't yet, and may be severely disappointed in the results if they try. John "Akatsukami" Braue Monday, August 12, 2002 |
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