RE: How it is Supposed to Work
June 26, 2026 at 8:45 pm
(This post was last modified: June 26, 2026 at 9:24 pm by Belacqua.)
(June 25, 2026 at 5:10 pm)Leonardo17 Wrote: [...]
We can even say (for instance) that Christianity has already abandoned all concepts of “holy war” already.
[...]
The Wikipedia article on "religious war" discusses this pretty well, I think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_war
In the past, various religious groups were more likely to start a war against another group based on religious belief. Arguably the Albigensian Crusade in the 13th century was a war of this type. The Pope at the time thought the best way to stamp out a heresy was through violence. It's worth noting, however, that most of the people who actually did the fighting did so from more worldly motives. French aristocrats were told that they could keep any land they captured from heretics.
More recently it's pretty clear that wars fought in the name of religion always have worldly motives. Colonialism is often the cause -- people who oppose colonial powers find religion a useful tool to rally forces. Then the colonial powers have the advantage that they can deny their exploitation of weaker countries has anything to do with the violence -- they can say it's all the fault of those horrible religious fanatics.
Someone on this forum even claimed a while ago that the Catholic vs. Protestant troubles in Ireland were ENTIRELY the result of theological disagreements. Which of course ignores the entire history of the region ever since the 12th century.
So the US funds Islamists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union, and then act surprised when the groups they created don't like being exploited by the US either. But we can ignore all the political and economic factors if we just hate Muslims enough.
