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No worries. I was hoping a history major would come along and clarify things for me.
Here's the point I was trying to make: I don't think it's denyable that there is a major undercurrent of cultural friction in world history. Cultures have met on the battlefield far more often than in the trading tent. And no force more defines a culture than its religion.
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History major here, and that statement is again completely incorrect. War between cultures are rare, trading is the norm. War would occur as a result of power shifts in both internal and international realms. These took generations to hundreds of years to occur until just this century. Trading, on the other hand, would occur regardless of war or peace.
And to state that it's THE major driving force in defining a culture is at best a far stretch. That assumes that there is no culture that predates the arrival of said religion. Jesus never taught sexism, but the culture of those who adopted the teachings brought it into the scriptures.
The Jewish scriptures are full of war, pillaging, and flat out slaughter of their enemies. Yet their culture is generally seen as peaceful.
The old Danes litterally believed that the only way into heaven was to die in battle, yet they traded more than pillaged (though are only remembered for the latter).