Subject: Re: War Reaps a Young Harvest
Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2000 11:43:46 +1100
From: Richard Kerr <>
Newsgroups: aus.religion.christian

Andy Bearsley wrote:
> Roscoe <> wrote in message
> > Andy Bearsley wrote:
> > > Truth.. <> wrote in message
> > > > War Reaps a Young Harvest
> > >
> > > And what do you suppose has been the GREATEST cause of war?
> >
> > Sin & Greed!!
>
> Take a look at the world and tell me how many separate wars are currently
> between Muslims and Christians.

I can't think of any that are exclusively religious in nature. The
battles in Ace in Indonesia, for instance, are ethnic and economic at
root.

Earlier you (at least I think it was you) asked how many wars have been
caused by religion. I can think of two that I'd put in that category:

Muhammad's conquest of the Arab Peninsula after his flight to Medina,
this was explicitly an attempt to establish Islam as the single religion
of the Arabs.

The first crusade, as far as I can tell this was a religiously motivated
(and ill-fated) attempt to recapture Jerusalem. All subsequent crusades
were motivated by greed as far as I can see. The last crusade didn't
even make it to Jerusalem, they sacked Constantinople, then the capital
of the church's empire, instead.

The current conflict between Christians and Hindus in Northern India
seems to be religiously motivated too, but it's not big enough to be
called a war, and I don't really know enough about it to be able to
judge.

In general, wars motivated purely by passion for religion are extremely
rare (ISTM), and are not enobled by the fact they are motivated by
religion in any case.

--
Regards,

Richard Kerr