Religious War - Religion, Secularity, and Violence

Religion, Secularity, and Violence

See also: Religious terrorism and Religious violence

Violence committed by secular governments and people, including the anti-religious, have been documented including some instances of violence or persecutions focused on religious believers and those who believe in the supernatural. World War I, World War II, many civil wars (American, El Salvador, Russia, Sri Lanka, China etc.), revolutionary wars (American, French, Russian, etc.), and common conflicts such as gang and drug wars (e.g. Mexican Drug War) or even the War on Terrorism, have all been secular. In addition, the USSR anti-religious campaign, Albanian anti-religious campaign, among others have been conducted under atheist states.

Jack David Eller, an anthropologist of culture, violence, and religion who himself is an atheist, claims: "As we have insisted previously, religion is not inherently and irredeemably violent; it certainly is not the essence and source of all violence." and "Religion and violence are clearly compatible, but they are not identical. Violence is one phenomenon in human (and natural existence), religion is another, and it is inevitable that the two would become intertwined. Religion is complex and modular, and violence is one of the modules - not universal, but recurring. As a conceptual and behavioral module, violence is by no means exclusive to religion. There are plenty of other groups, institutions, interests, and ideologies to promote violence. Violence is, therefore, neither essential to nor exclusive to religion. Nor is religious violence all alike... And virtually every form of religious violence has its nonreligious corollary."

In terms of religion, ethnicity, wars, and conflicts, Jack David Eller states: "When a pure or hybrid religious group and/or its interests are threatened, or merely blocked from achieving its interests by another group, conflict and violence may ensue. In such cases, although religion is part of the issue and religious groups form the competitors, or combatants, it would be simplistic or wrong to assume the religion is the "cause" of the trouble or that the parties are "fighting about religion". Religion in the circumstances may be more a marker of the groups than an actual point of contention between them."

William T. Cavanaugh, a theology professor who was written on religion, violence, and politics; has contested and challenged the construct of "religious violence". He argues points such as:

• Religion is not a universal and transhistorical phenomenon. What counts as "religious" or "secular" in any context is a function of configurations of power both in the West and lands colonized by the West. The distinctions of "religious/secular" and "religious/political" are modern Western inventions.
• The invention of the concept of "religious violence" helps the West reinforce superiority of Western social orders to "nonsecular" social orders, namely Muslims at the time of publication.
• The concept of "religious violence" can be and is used to legitimate violence against non-Western "Others".
• Peace depends on a balanced view of violence and recognition that so-called secular ideologies and institutions can be just as prone to absolutism, divisiveness, and irrationality.

Historians such as Jonathan Kirsch have made links between the European inquisitions, for example, and Stalin's persecutions in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, McCarthy blacklists, and other secular events as being the same type of phenomenon as the inquisitions.

Others, like Robert Pape, a political scientist who specializes in suicide terrorism, have made a case for secular motivations and reasons as being foundations of most suicide attacks that are oftentimes labeled as "religious".