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Originally Posted by The_Jazz
I think that you're still missing my fundamental point, though, which is that the religion is the justification not the motivation for war. Here's my challenge for you: find a war or even a long-term conflict such as Inquisition or the Salem Witch Trials in the entirety of human history that was motivated solely by religion. I think that you will come up short.
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Jazz.. Very good point... after a lot of thought about this one I can only come up with weak examples by which to disagree with you. But I am not quite yet willing to concede. Let me try this last argument on for size.
I just grabbed this from Wikipedia: So take it for what it's worth. Although it does agree with my Myers Psych TextBooks from University
"In psychology, motivation is the driving force behind all actions of human beings, animals, and lower organisms. It is an internal state that activates behavior and gives it direction. Emotion is closely related to motivation, and may be regarded as the subjectively experienced component of motivational states."
If a person were to read in the bible that the world is Flat would they be motivated to deny the truthfullness of the claim "the world is actually round" as it was made a few centuries ago. Would they be motivated by scripture to correct the person who denies what scripture says?
Judaism, christianity and Islam have similar problems with their texts.. They use the "Doctrine of faith".
If I have it right... The doctrine of faith is this: You are requred to beleive in order to be saved by your faith.
New testament (also from Wikipedia ...just now) Bear with me this point takes a while.
John 3:16 (chapter 3, verse 16 of the Gospel of John) is one of the most widely quoted verses from the Christian Bible. It has been called the "Bible in a nutshell" because it is considered a summary of some of the most important doctrines of Christianity:
For God so loved the world... - God is a God of love and this love motivates his action in the rest of the verse
...that he gave... - there was God giving something, his son as a sacrifice
...his only begotten Son... - the human Jesus of Nazareth is also the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity
...that whosoever... - that the salvation is open to all
...believeth... - being saved is based on belief or faith, rather than based on human works. However, belief is proved by ones works as one believes into Christ.
...in him... - the belief being in Jesus, the Saviour
...should not perish... - implies the fate of those who do not believe, that is the doctrine of hell
...but have everlasting life. - shows the reward of those who believe, that is the doctrine of heaven
(or... the Doctrine of faith)
Don't give up on me yet!
So if I did not beleive the Bible... and told a 15th century, devout Catholic man's children that I thought the bible was "wrong" or tried to influence a change away from their religion... the devout man would defend his kids based on his own want for their salvation... because if they "believe" me they would go to hell.
In this case religious belief is definitly both the "motivator" and "justification" for action.
Of course this doesn't mean that the man would kill me...
But, if he also beleived the Old testament (Deuteronomy chapter 13) he would be OBLIGATED to kill me. ( Motivation and justification. )
Based on this point I beleive that you are actually incorrect. BUT... as you said there MUST have been 'other' reasons why people went to war. Although this does explain why those who lead the crusades were considered "Defenders of the Faith" > Oddly suicide Bombers are seen in the same light in modern times.
Now that I look at it this way I can think of many who perished as they challenged scripture..Most of them were scientists of old.