Wars and Religion, How many recent wars were started because of religious belief

I do not know of any wars that were started out of "greed". Unless you consider a lust for power to be "greed", in which case most wars are started by a lust for power. The few that are not, are normally due to entangling alliances. One of the things our founding fathers were against was entangling alliances with other countries. World War 1, was essentially started by dozens of countries that all went to war, because they were all allied with each other. The First gulf war was basically started because we had allied ourselves with Kuwait. If we had not, likely neither war would have ever happened, unless Saddam had done more to threaten us. But most wars happen because of a lust for power. Saddam wasn't greedy. He had all the money could have possibly wanted. He simply wanted more power. He wanted Kuwait, and a port to the ocean, and more control over trade, and more land, and more more more. Similarly, Russia went to war with Georgia, not over greed, but power. Georgia was wiping out a militant separatist group that supported Russia. Russia wanted to remain in control of that area. So they attacked Georgia. It was all about power and control. I think the misunderstanding about religion and war, is that most people do not understand the most religion stems from what people already believe. There are exceptions, but generally the use of religion is simply to justify what they already want. So you find a group of people that want to slaughter each other, and they'll make up a religion to justify what they have already chosen to do. A perfect example of this would be Rwanda where after the Genocide, the Tutsis returned and the Hutus fled to the Congo. In the Congo, Christian missionaries came and helped the refuge Hutus. Suddenly the leader of the fled Hutus was a Christian. He explained how he was sent by God, to protect his Hutu brothers, by slaughtering Tutsis. Now, if this were not so sick and true, it'd be laughable. It of course, isn't possible to justify mindless genocide using the Bible. So instead, they simply morphed Christianity to justify their actions. Now a non-religious person could look at that and claim they religion started the war. Instead, the war had already started, the people had already been killing each other. They simply morphed a religious belief to fit what they had already chosen to do.

In my opinion, The so-called war on terror is all because of religion not politics, it is religious war masked by political Claims, not because I say it is, but because: former President George Bush Clearly said that it is a crusade On the eve of the war in Iraq, George W. Bush talked about a "crusade". He was obviously quite pleased with himself for having thought of such a catchy phrase. But he was quickly silenced by his advisers, who pointed out to him that the word "crusade" has very unfortunate associations for the Muslim world. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=br_70Kbdpow&feature=related Bible verses were used on cover sheets for intelligence reports written for Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials. [i]"One of the cover sheets features a photo of a tank in the sunset inlaid with Ephesians 6:13: "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand." A "World Intelligence Update" included Proverbs 16:3: "Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed" above a picture of a machine-gunner.[/i] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/18/pentagon-bible-quotes-no_n_204934.html Senator John McCain hailed as a spiritual adviser an Ohio megachurch pastor who has called upon Christians to wage a "war" against the "false religion" of Islam with the aim of destroying it. http://motherjones.com/politics/2008/03/mccains-spiritual-guide-destroy-islam What else do you need to consider it religious war, specially when you know that they announced that they found Nothing in Iraq after Killing 2 million Iraqi innocent Muslims ?

Honestly, I believe most, if not all wars, stem from greed and corruption. Religion is simply a tool or scapegoat to justify one's actions or convince others to join your cause. You can't blame a non-living concept for something. It can't do anything. It takes people to start a war, and those people will find a justification for said war, but in the end, it's people who are to blame, not religion.

i would imagine religion and greed are about 50/50 by now. and some is greed under the blind of religion (meaning it wasn't really about that in the first place) so it's hard to say. but i'd say 90% are started by something the other side has be it money,land, food whatever.

I will put my personal belief in percentage as to the top reasons that have caused war in known history. 60% caused for money/land 40% race (black vs white) ethnicity (Red team 1 culture/religion etc vs blue team culture/religion)

Okay, let's stick to modern events. The recent civil war in Iraq between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. That's one example. Another example is the ongoing war in the Southern Philippines waged by Moro Islamic Liberation Front against the predominantly Christian government. Another one, the attempt of Milosevic and his friends to cleanse their country of Muslim population. Ethnic cleansing. What else?

Hi EvanHunter, I think that most recent wars were mainly about greed and power struggles. Even in the middle East, the struggle for land is right up there. Most people seem to believe that the war in Iraq, was either about weapons of mass destruction or was all about oil. There have I suppose been some civil wars that may have had something to do with religion, but there were also other factors. Even the war in Northern Ireland really had to do with the region wanting to be a part of the Republic of Ireland, rather than being governed from Britain. Religion is sometimes blamed for wars that were started over something entirely different. Blessings.

It's pretty hard to say actually because it seems like a lot of conflict and wars have been started over religious arguments. I don't know how people can allow their differences in belief to drive them to be that violent but of course not all wars are spawned solely from religion. I think that greed also fuels a lot of war.

Hi, religion is a great way to control the people to fight in wars which are caused by other reasons, usually greed, oil, or control freaks. Those who rouse their people to war through playing on the populations beliefs are not the devout and holy types they represent themselves as, but who would go to war only to further increase the power and money of the leaders, they need to be manipulated by some other cause and usually religion is a nice handy little tool.

"Caused by" religion is an interesting wording. Someone pointed out that the current War on Terror is a religious conflict due to the Islamic terrorists that attacked us. But are America's motivations religious? I would hope not! Hitler was a megalomaniac (power hungry, certainly), but religion was not exactly a non-issue in WW2 (concentration camps, obviously). I don't think war motivations are as clear cut as they once were.