Hi Thanks for the time to read my blog and for your feed back. I often hear from people what you say about Religion causing all the trouble in the world and we would be better off with out it. When one watches TV or when one is dealing with visible conflict, it is easy to be convinced about the negativity of religion.
Having experienced in a limited way other cultures where religion appears to cause problems and having a degree in politics and history I do not think the statement holds true.
1) In a practical sense if there were no religions in the world the biggest blood baths of that century would still have occurred because they were mainly perpetuated by Governments / Systems / nations who were strongly opposed to religion and had rejected religious reasoning for science. I of course am referring to the Nazi's and Communism. Between them they killed more people and caused more pain then all the religions combined through history. So following this rule of thumb, non religious people are more guilty then religious people (I am being silly here).
2) Usually where there appears to be a war over religion it is a masquerade for deeper tensions over cultural issues / tribal and historical issues. I give an example of Northern Ireland. Everyone says it is between the Catholics and the Protestants. But if one delves deeper the problem is that hundreds of years ago a large migration of Scottish people moved into Northern Ireland forcibly moving off the original inhabitants. They kept there Scottish culture including their faith and the problems began. But really it is a clash of Cultures (Scottish vs. Irish) then religion which most of the combatants could not give a rip about.
Another classic example of cultural wars is Rwanda. Two tribes both tried to wipe each other killing millions of people. But it was not a clash of religion as both tribes (I think) were Christian! It was all about historical tribal hatred.
Even September 11 and Iraq are not about religion in reality but a mess of geographical / tribal and cultural issues which are to involved to talk about here.
For me as a believer in Christ, I believe all men including myself are sinners. All mankind has an inherently evil side which is why we compulsively do wrong even when we know what is right. I believe the Bible says that there will be no peace until Jesus Christ comes again. It is irrelevant whether one is religious or non religious, there will still be war. I can never hope in man's ways only God's.
