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Religions and War

grayman

Happy-go-lucky Heretic
grayman
Joined
Apr 24, 2006
Messages
5,655
As I was reading today about current events happening in the Middle East, a question occured to me: How many wars in mankind's history have been started by an atheist?

I could do the research myself, but I thought it'd make for a lively debate. Also, I need to run off to work. Plus, I'm lazy.
 
I don't think the current war in the middle east is anything to do with religion.
 
Wars are started for power. Wars fought over religion are really over which religious leaders control the people.
 
but religion is often what gives the leaders the power and thus the authority to lead people into war. i think it is a legitimate question from that perspective.

you say the war isnt about religion, which it may or may not be, but whether or not the "leaders" really believe what they are preaching, they might not have the power to wage this war without having religion as their justification.

so i guess the question could be phrased "has any (publically recognized) athiest ever commanded enough power to wage war?"
 
I think part of the problem is how few atheists there have been, similar to the thread about democracies and war. Until the last couple of centuries pretty much everyone was religious, even those acknowledged as great thinkers and scientists just assumed there was a god. Even now it is considered very unusual not to believe in some kind of god(s). So even if a war was started for reasons that had nothing to do with religion it is very unlikely that the people starting it were actually atheists.

Perhaps an even better question would be "Has a war ever been started that had no connection with the religion of either side, apart from being assumed as part of their culture?"
 
Cuddles said:
I think part of the problem is how few atheists there have been, similar to the thread about democracies and war.
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Quite right.

Perhaps an even better question would be "Has a war ever been started that had no connection with the religion of either side, apart from being assumed as part of their culture?"
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There have been a helluvalot of dynastic wars, and a lot of wars that were simply about plunder and/or land (the women being incidental light relief).

Come to think of it, the earliest wars were probably all about the women. Kill the men, take the women.
 
Ryokan said:
Stalin?
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I wouldn't really consider Stalin an atheist though. He talked the talk but he didn't walk the walk. He was his own god. His extreme megalomania led him to kill in the name of Stalin in the same way others killed in the name of God. I don't think he tried to destroy the church because he thought it was poisoning the masses, I think he did it because he was jealous of the attention it got.

Steven

Edited, as usual, for anal retentive spelling reasons.
 
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I wouldn't really consider Stalin an atheist though. The talked the talk but he didn't walk the walk. He was his own god. His extreme megalomania led him to kill in the name of Stalin in the same way others killed in the name of God. I don't think he tried to destroy the church because he thought it was poisoning the masses, I think he did it because he was jealous of the attention it got.
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*coughartfuldodgecough*

:)
 
Foster Zygote said:
I wouldn't really consider Stalin an atheist though. He talked the talk but he didn't walk the walk. He was his own god. His extreme megalomania led him to kill in the name of Stalin in the same way others killed in the name of God. I don't think he tried to destroy the church because he thought it was poisoning the masses, I think he did it because he was jealous of the attention it got.

Steven

Edited, as usual, for anal retentive spelling reasons.
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Look, he believed in a mystical force of historical determinism, but he didn't believe in any gods. Ergo, atheist.
 
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