Which has killed more? Politics or Religion?

Seriously, can anyone think of a Roman war that was based on religious grounds? I am not talking about every day harrassment but an actual war?
 
Camikaze said:
People didn't vote back then. ;)
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Welcome to the world of irony. :)

Camikaze said:
I don't claim to know much about the Inquisition, but I would think that large scale ''witch-hunts" can easily be put down to spreading fear, and more importantly, forcing conformity and obedience.
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Go and read up about religion in that era then. Don't make answers based
on half-known data. You'll find that the church wanted to make sure that
all of Europes people only followed their faith, and also to make sure that
all esoteric wisdom was crushed, except that which the church dispensed.

Indeed, politics comes into it, like all things, but mysticism was calling
the shots when it came to holy executions and terror-spreading...

Camikaze said:
Power needs consolidating.
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Not when you have a whole social caste that see you as a god from birth.

Camikaze said:
The exception that proves the rule?
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No. Aztecs were not alone in human sacrifice, although many see them as a benchmark.

Camikaze said:
The problem here is separating the underlying causes of different killings, and the more personal justifications. A witch-hunt could be ordered by the Church, for example, in order to create fear and increase conformity and obedience, completed unrelated to religious beliefs, but using it as a justification. Sure, the individuals that actually burn people at the stake may believe that what they are doing is good because of their religion, but the underlying reason, and cause of such a witch-hunt in the first place, is purely political.
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Depends on the men issuing the orders. Some were seeking power,
some really thought they were carrying out their god's work...

Camikaze said:
The fact that religion is capable of being used to obtain political goals is not so much a reflection on religion or specific religions themselves, but on how important religion and religions are to some people, that they can be manipulated by their religious overlords, or however you wish to describe them.
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Look at the world today, with islamic terror (or whatever it is)...
Would you say that this is political control or religious control?

Cynical leaders, no doubt - But what of the insurgent grunts?
Are they political or religious empowered individuals?

.
 
Patroklos said:
Seriously, can anyone think of a Roman war that was based on religious grounds? I am not talking about every day harrassment but an actual war?
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They fought several with the Sasanian Empire that were arguably "religious wars", like the Lazican War. The last Roman-Persian War, which I'm going to make the subject of a history article if it kills me, has been described as "the First Crusade". As with most wars, attempting to isolate it to any one cause is pointless; religion played a role, but geopolitics and personalities did as well.

Can you name a Roman Republican war that didn't involve repeated religious justifications for even the most minor actions? Roman generals predicated many of the things they did on the judgment of the auguries, for instance. Are the deaths of the men in the battles that resulted due at least in part to the Roman religion and its view of fate? Or how about the men that, in times of desperate need, Roman religious officials ordered buried alive to alleviate a particularly bad run of luck? They did that after Cannae, and after Arausio, for instance. It's hard to argue that the Roman religion didn't play a huge role in the deaths of those people. And at the same time, it's pretty obvious religion didn't play the biggest, let alone the only, role in motivating people to kill in most of the wars the Roman state fought. Can you extricate one reason from another? Could the people who actually did the fighting do so?
 
VRWCAgent said:
I'd call what caused the most "tribalism". "You're different, we're gonna attack you". Look at the Aboriginal Americans. Was their religion vastly different from the neighboring tribes around them? Yet they warred all the time against one another.
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Tribal war was still sanctioned by omens and gods.

Seems people cannot accept that their pet religion could never be responsible
for killing on a grand scale...Not enough history books being read these days...

;)
 
CurtSibling said:
Here is a new question, which arose in my last thread...A post put forth that far more
have been killed in the name of political tyranny than in the name of religious mania...

What do you think? In mankinds history, which one has caused more deaths...?

Just looking to see what you all believe...
Fire away!
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Curt,

Not sure the question makes a good choice between the two. I think history shows us that religion has been used by the powerful as a political tool to grab and/or hold power.

In that aspect they are one and the same.

But to answer your question, more people were killed by politics than religion simply because the wars in the 20th century that killed millions upon millions more than ever before in history were based on politics, not religion.
 
Dachs said:
They fought several with the Sasanian Empire that were arguably "religious wars", like the Lazican War. The last Roman-Persian War, which I'm going to make the subject of a history article if it kills me, has been described as "the First Crusade". As with most wars, attempting to isolate it to any one cause is pointless; religion played a role, but geopolitics and personalities did as well.
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You could argue it, but not well. All the Sasanian wars have easily recognizable economic and geopolitical foundations that eclipse any relgious rational.

Can you name a Roman Republican war that didn't involve repeated religious justifications for even the most minor actions?
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All of them.

Roman generals predicated many of the things they did on the judgment of the auguries, for instance. Are the deaths of the men in the battles that resulted due at least in part to the Roman religion and its view of fate?
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Thats all irrelevant. The fact that participants in a war are religious does not mean the motives for going to war are religious. Pretty much every army that has gone to war up to the present day does so under the request that some diety helps them. Its irrelevant.

Or how about the men that, in times of desperate need, Roman religious officials ordered buried alive to alleviate a particularly bad run of luck?
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Irrelevant. Unless you are going to argue that the perhaps several thousand that suffered that fate at best are going to be statistically relevant to the OP question. But even so in your example they are appealing to gods to help them allieviate circumstances, circumstances that are not automatically religious in origin.

They did that after Cannae, and after Arausio, for instance. It's hard to argue that the Roman religion didn't play a huge role in the deaths of those people.
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The question wasn't whether religion played a role in their deaths, but rather whether it was caused by it. Its great you brought up Cannae, because that was a war with nothing but superficial religious overtones and was rather an obvious case of powers fighting over economics. No sane person would say any of the Punic wars had an relevant grounds in religion, not even the Romans or Carthaginians made such a claim.

And at the same time, it's pretty obvious religion didn't play the biggest, let alone the only, role in motivating people to kill in most of the wars the Roman state fought. Can you extricate one reason from another? Could the people who actually did the fighting do so?
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Yes. Asking the help of your Gods in defeating your enemies is not the same thing as making enemies because of your Gods.

You might as well blame the Roman diet for those war deaths, the connection is just as strong.
 
Dachs said:
I don't really think you can separate things that neatly. That's the point.
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Well yeah, it's a simplification, of course, but I'm trying to make the general point that those apparently solely religious killings were not based solely on religion.

CurtSibling said:
Welcome to the world of irony. :)
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*checks watch*

Go and read up about religion in that era then. Don't make answers based
on half-known data. You'll find that the church wanted to make sure that
all of Europes people only followed their faith, and also to make sure that
all esoteric wisdom was crushed, except that which the church dispensed.
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I was saying. The only difference is that I'm saying that that was political reasons rather than purely religious ones. I mean, gaining the obedience of the entire population of Europe is a pretty big political aim, right?

Indeed, politics comes into it, like all things, but mysticism was calling
the shots when it came to holy executions and terror-spreading...
Click to expand...

Can't you see that the whole reason for spreading terror was in order to force people to accept authority?

Not when you have a whole social caste that see you as a god from birth.
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That's the entire point! Religion can be used for the political reason of portraying oneself as a god like figure, hence consolidating power.

No. Aztecs were not alone in human sacrifice, although many see them as a benchmark.
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How 'bout human sacrifice being the exception that proves the rule? :p

And even then, human sacrifice can be seen in some ways as having political motivations.

Depends on the men issuing the orders. Some were seeking power,
some really thought they were carrying out their god's work...
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Depends on what level we are talking about, and also, refer to my reply to Dachs earlier in this post; simplification. Of course some people calling the shots were deluded enough to believe what they were ordering, but the overarching main concern in all of these things is a political one.

Look at the world today, with islamic terror (or whatever it is)...
Would you say that this is political control or religious control?
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Well, that is a tricky situation, but I would say political mostly. Whatever warped political benefit some people see themselves getting out of launching terrorist attacks from a cave in the middle of nowhere. But if it was truly entirely religious, the terrorist leaders would be the ones with bombs strapped to their chests, wouldn't they?

Also, it should be noted that such possible examples of religion being the main factor in killing do not even come close to comparing to killings done on political grounds.

Cynical leaders, no doubt - But what of the insurgent grunts?
Are they political or religious empowered individuals?

.
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Well where does the underlying cause sit? With what can be manipulated to trick people into doing things, or with what the actual higher level reasoning and motivation for an act is?
 
Patroklos said:
Neither, economics trumps both.

However, even a casual examination of histories wars shows that only a minority of them are overtly religious, and usually not the most destructive ones. Even when you look at wars that have easily recognizable religious divisions between sides like many of the European succession wars it’s just a thin veneer, window dressing to disguise a far less noble political power grab.
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Economics is the base of politics though (and many would argue, religion).
 
Patroklos said:
Seriously, can anyone think of a Roman war that was based on religious grounds? I am not talking about every day harrassment but an actual war?
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Not a Roman one, but Greek ones. Generally by the Amphicyonic League due to harassment of the Delphic Oracle. They were no joke, either; the Third one resulted in the complete and systematic destruction of Thebes.
 
MobBoss said:
Curt,

Not sure the question makes a good choice between the two. I think history shows us that religion has been used by the powerful as a political tool to grab and/or hold power.
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Yep.

It's not the hammer that does the killing but the jerk at the end who used it to bash someone's skull.
 
Patroklos said:
You could argue it, but not well. All the Sasanian wars have easily recognizable economic and geopolitical foundations that eclipse any relgious rational.
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Economic? In the Caucasus? When half of the wars were started by Christian revolts against the Sasanians? :rolleyes:
Patroklos said:
Thats all irrelevant. The fact that participants in a war are religious does not mean the motives for going to war are religious. Pretty much every army that has gone to war up to the present day does so under the request that some diety helps them. Its irrelevant.
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Is it? One of the Claudii Pulcheres is rather famous for disregarding said omens and suffering a defeat upon so doing. This was considered sufficiently noteworthy to be commented upon in other media centuries later. Romans simply didn't fight without trying to at least make a show about figuring out what the gods had to say about it. Their religious practices played a very clear role in determining military ones.
Patroklos said:
Irrelevant. Unless you are going to argue that the perhaps several thousand that suffered that fate at best are going to be statistically relevant to the OP question.
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You seem to have me confused with the OP.
Patroklos said:
But even so in your example they are appealing to gods to help them allieviate circumstances, circumstances that are not automatically religious in origin.
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...this justification confuses me. One could argue the same for the Inquisition or witch-burnings, at least for the popular-history understanding of the Inquisition and witch-burnings. Romans ask priests "what should we do?" Priests say "bury some foreigners alive in the Forum!" Romans bury some foreigners alive in the Forum. How did Roman religion not play the greater part of responsibility in the deaths of those people?
Patroklos said:
The question wasn't whether religion played a role in their deaths, but rather whether it was caused by it. Its great you brought up Cannae, because that was a war with nothing but superficial religious overtones and was rather an obvious case of powers fighting over economics. No sane person would say any of the Punic wars had an relevant grounds in religion, not even the Romans or Carthaginians made such a claim.
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Economics? The Second Punic war was fought for purely economic reasons? I'm sure this will be enlightening.

Like I said, you seem to have me confused with the OP. Perhaps you're too lazy to have read through the thread.
Patroklos said:
Yes. Asking the help of your Gods in defeating your enemies is not the same thing as making enemies because of your Gods.

You might as well blame the Roman diet for those war deaths, the connection is just as strong.
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Predicating military actions on religious practices is not the same thing as asking the help of gods. If the entrails look bad, or the geese didn't eat, or if there wasn't an appropriate eclipse, the Romans would put off the fight. The deaths of soldiers in battle was linked, obviously not in whole but at least in part, to the almost otherworldly Roman superstition.
 
I've seen several imply that politics is the reason, and religion is the excuse. Does that really exonerate religion? And secondly, without religion as an excuse, would certain conflicts start in the first place? This will of course vary with the individual case, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about this matter unfortunately.
 
Dachs said:
Economic? In the Caucasus? When half of the wars were started by Christian revolts against the Sasanians? :rolleyes:
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Just because those revolting are Christians does not mean they were revolting because they were Christians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_relations_with_the_Parthians_and_Sassanids

Religion was an afterthought. The Parthians/Sassanids were simply the next biggest bully on the block, and their wars had more to do with the personal aggrandizement of Emperors and Kings than any religious motivation.

You can maybe characterize the late Byzantine interaction as religious somewhat, but then again its just a veneer to justify political control.

Is it? One of the Claudii Pulcheres is rather famous for disregarding said omens and suffering a defeat upon so doing. This was considered sufficiently noteworthy to be commented upon in other media centuries later. Romans simply didn't fight without trying to at least make a show about figuring out what the gods had to say about it. Their religious practices played a very clear role in determining military ones.
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HOW you fight a war is not the same as WHY you fight a war.

You seem to have me confused with the OP.
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Start your own thread if you don't have any intention of staying on topic.

...this justification confuses me. One could argue the same for the Inquisition or witch-burnings, at least for the popular-history understanding of the Inquisition and witch-burnings. Romans ask priests "what should we do?" Priests say "bury some foreigners alive in the Forum!" Romans bury some foreigners alive in the Forum. How did Roman religion not play the greater part of responsibility in the deaths of those people?
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Again, HOW you fight a war is not the same thing as WHY you fight a war. Your examples are superficial. If their wasn't a war in the first place none of what you describe would have happened. Please point out the Roman wars that were started because Mars said so.

Economics? The Second Punic war was fought for purely economic reasons? I'm sure this will be enlightening.
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Let me educate you:

"The main cause of the Punic Wars was the clash of interests between the existing Carthaginian Empire and the expanding Roman Republic. The Romans were initially interested in expansion via Sicily (which at that time was a cultural melting pot), part of which lay under Carthaginian control."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punic_Wars

I guess you could try and say expansion isn't economic in nature, but I don't think you are that dishonest.

But if you want to continue to believe they were caused because Mars said so, be my guest.

Predicating military actions on religious practices is not the same thing as asking the help of gods. If the entrails look bad, or the geese didn't eat, or if there wasn't an appropriate eclipse, the Romans would put off the fight. The deaths of soldiers in battle was linked, obviously not in whole but at least in part, to the almost otherworldly Roman superstition.
Click to expand...

Again, HOW you fight a war is not the same as WHY you fight a war.
 
Lillefix said:
I've seen several imply that politics is the reason, and religion is the excuse. Does that really exonerate religion? And secondly, without religion as an excuse, would certain conflicts start in the first place? This will of course vary with the individual case, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about this matter unfortunately.
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There's always the untermensch excuse, the Weapons of Mass Destruction excuse, and probably many, many more.
 
Citing Wikipedia in a history argument against Dachs is always a good way to rebuke him.
 
Lillefix said:
I've seen several imply that politics is the reason, and religion is the excuse. Does that really exonerate religion? And secondly, without religion as an excuse, would certain conflicts start in the first place? This will of course vary with the individual case, but I'm not knowledgeable enough about this matter unfortunately.
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This is essentially where Dachs analysis fails, he is putting the cart before the horse.

Is anyone really going to maintain that the wars between Rome and Carthage would not have happened had both sides been athiests? Of course not, because the same forces that actually caused conflict would have existed regarless of any religious factors. It may have looked different, but it would have happened all the same.
 
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