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religious wars
- Thread starter syo
- Start date
When it is motivated by explicitly theological or theocratic directives, I would think.
syo
Well-Known Member
I see. in my opinion, a religious war is when a group of people systematically attacks a religion in order to exterminate the religion.
I don't think that is broad enough. Because it doesn't cover a whole lot of things I'd think count as "religious wars".
Take the Crusades. The pope said that God Wills It that the Christians band together to conquer the Holy Land. They weren't trying to exterminate Muslims entirely, but they were pretty religiously motivated in their attempt at conquest.
Augustus
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It's actually pretty difficult to differentiate between wars featuring belligerents of different religions and religious wars.
The Mongol conquests are generally not seen as a series of religious wars.
Some people classify (the Mongol) Timur's conquest of India as religious conquest seeing as some Mongols converted to Islam when they conquered the Islamic Empires, even though he saw himself as the 2nd Ghenghis Khan.
The proto-Islamic conquests of the Eastern Roman Empire are seen as religious, despite being very similar to the 'Barbarian' conquests of the Western Roman Empire which were not religious.
Religious divides also frequently correlate to ethnic/cultural divides and religious interests also align with political interests further muddying the waters.
It is far easier to identify wars that have some kind of religious dimension (along with other contributing factors) than wars that were purely about religion (of which there aren't that many really).
The Mongol conquests are generally not seen as a series of religious wars.
Some people classify (the Mongol) Timur's conquest of India as religious conquest seeing as some Mongols converted to Islam when they conquered the Islamic Empires, even though he saw himself as the 2nd Ghenghis Khan.
The proto-Islamic conquests of the Eastern Roman Empire are seen as religious, despite being very similar to the 'Barbarian' conquests of the Western Roman Empire which were not religious.
Religious divides also frequently correlate to ethnic/cultural divides and religious interests also align with political interests further muddying the waters.
It is far easier to identify wars that have some kind of religious dimension (along with other contributing factors) than wars that were purely about religion (of which there aren't that many really).
This seems a fair standard. A follow-up question arises as I think about the fact that wars rarely if ever have a singular cause. What, then, makes us label a conflict as a "religious war" as opposed to a "food security war" or a "territorial war" or some other sort of qualifier? Or do we apply multiple qualifiers to a particular conflict?
Very little in Real Life (TM) happens due to a single causal factor, and wars are hardly an exception.
On the other hand, it is not usual in most discourse to truly mention each and every cause for phenomena, either.
I would call conflicts where the declared motivations of at least one of the factions are theological or theocratic "religious" (despite finding theology to be very different from religion myself, but that is another discussion for another time), and perhaps add the qualifier for conflics where the statement is not quite so explicit.
On the other hand, it is not usual in most discourse to truly mention each and every cause for phenomena, either.
I would call conflicts where the declared motivations of at least one of the factions are theological or theocratic "religious" (despite finding theology to be very different from religion myself, but that is another discussion for another time), and perhaps add the qualifier for conflics where the statement is not quite so explicit.
The most obvious case of a genocidal war is in the Bible Old Testament. Every time I reference it I am taken aback by the viciousness of it all. And, quite ironically to my mind, is that a known killer, Moses, was chosen to lead the endeavor. (Moses kills an Egyptian at Ex 2-12, and God twice states {Ex 21-12 and Lev 24:17} that "Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death." And, "You are to have the same law for the alien and the native-born") We learn it's because God has a mission for Moses, i.e. to lead a genocidal war to annihilate whoever is living in Canaan at a distant time in the future. (God's creations also, weren't they?) So, Moses and Joshua become the leaders of a genocide to take control of the land of Canaan..... In fact at Num 11-21 Moses says "Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot....". Right....... And so at Deut 2-32 the story is told of the genocide of Sihon the Amorite, king of Heshbon. "When Sihon and all his army came out to meet us in battle at Jahaz, The Lord our God delivered him over to us and we struck him down, together with his sons and his whole army. At that time we took all his towns and completely destroyed them, men, women and children. We left no survivors. But the livestock and the plunder from the towns we had captured we carried off for ourselves." In a footnote it's mentioned that the Hebrew term 'ban' refers to the 'irrevocable giving over of things or persons to the Lord, often by destroying them." And finally, at Deut 7 the genocide is presented in graphic terms: "When the Lord your Good brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations - the Hittites, Girga****es, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hives and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you - and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy......... This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Ashram poles, and burn their idols in the fire.." Again, it is the invoking of the Ban, the total destruction of a population, or genocide. "The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession." And it continues at Deut 7-15, "You must destroy all the peoples the Lord Your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods......"
This brief description describes a religious genocide has taken place, and God himself is the author of it. An All-Powerful God has created the prototype for religious warfare. Now try to imagine such a thing happening in the Tao.
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Nice word substitution -- but, then again, the only difference between 'religious' and 'genocidal' is the first nine letters.
They were met by a force of believing Christians, Jews and Muslims who saw them as invading barbarians devoid of any spirituality.
Yep. That doesn't mean it wasn't a war with religious motivations.
Yes for sure the Crusaders totally believed they were doing God's work.
Same as Islam when it took Jerusalem,inspired by muhammad.
I think palestine/israel is the closest you could get to a religious war.
I mean I do love Taoism but even it has instances like the Northern Celestial Masters sect establishing a theocracy and single-religion state, becoming embroiled with the bloody politics of the Northern Wei Dynasty. The sect's Celestial Master, Kou Qianzhi, even had Buddhism outlawed and directed the Dynasty in enacting a bloody persecution of the Buddhists.
I mean, yeah, it's hard to imagine such a thing happening in the Tao with the sort of extreme, light-touch approach that Taoist philosophy demands of governance, but it still ended up happening. Even Taoists had violent people who tried to use Taoism to justify their violence.
Thinking about it, Kou Qianzhi was kind of like a Taoist version of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Both came forward with ideas on how to "reform" their religion into a "purer" form, and formed an alliance with a state dynasty (the Wei and the Saudi) in order to advance the political and religious power of their respective movements.
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