"[There] is one common misconception about religion that is voiced often and consistently as an obvious truth -- often by educated, thoughtful people --that is just not factually true: The idea that religion has been the cause of most wars... In their recently published book, "Encyclopedia of Wars," authors Charles Phillips and Alan Axelrod document the history of recorded warfare, and from their list of 1763 wars only 123 have been classified to involve a religious cause, accounting for less than 7 percent of all wars and less than 2 percent of all people killed in warfare. While, for example, it is estimated that approximately one to three million people were tragically killed in the Crusades, and perhaps 3,000 in the Inquisition, nearly 35 million soldiers and civilians died in the senseless, and secular, slaughter of World War 1 alone. History simply does not support the hypothesis that religion is the major cause of conflict."
Posted on: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 20:51:46 +0000
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