In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.
Most of the ugly wars in history have been wars of religion. And there's nothing more dangerous than someone with religious certitude who creates consequences in the world that to me are simply inexcusable.
The whole history of the last thousands of years has been a history of religious persecutions and wars, pogroms, jihads, crusades. I find it all very regrettable, to say the least.
All American wars (except the Civil War) have been fought with the odds overwhelmingly in favor of the Americans. In the history of armed combat such affairs as the Mexican and Spanish-American Wars must be ranked, not as wars at all, but as organized assassinations. In the two World Wars, no American faced a bullet until his adversaries had been worn down by years of fighting others.
The introduction of the Christian religion into the world has produced an incalculable change in history. There had previously been only a history of nations--there is now a history of mankind; and the idea of an education of human nature as a whole.--an education the work of Jesus Christ Himself--is become like a compass for the historian, the key of history, and the hope of nations.
The biggest religious wars and persecutions in history occur when religions, each claiming their own absolute truths, come into conflict.
History will never change because of politics or conquests or theories or wars; that's mere repitition, it's been going on since the beginning of time. History will only change when we are able to use the energy of love, just as we use energy of the wind, the seas, the atom.
The wars of Israel were the only 'holy wars' in history... there can be no more wars of faith. The only way to overcome our enemy is by loving him.
I acknowledge that history is full of religious wars: but we must distinguish; it is not the multiplicity of religions which has produced these wars; it was the intolerating spirit which animated that one which thought she had the power of governing.
Throughout history, religious wars have always been the most brutal and cruel and merciless.
the worst wars are religious wars between sects of the same religion or civil wars between brothers of the same race.
I went out to cover the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan fundamentally [in Buzzing at the Sill] because I was interested in war as a notion and in experiencing it. I was interested in history and how societies form. I was interested in the recent history of what had provoked these wars. So when I finally got out there, I was really seeing the wars through the American perspective, much more than through being embedded with American soldiers and Marines.
All wars of interference, arising from an officious intrusion into the concerns of other states; all wars of ambition, carried on for the purposes of aggrandizement; and all wars of aggression, undertaken for the purpose of forcing an assent to this or that set of religious opinions; all such wars are criminal in their very outset, and have hypocrisy for their common base.
History shows that wars are divided into two kinds-just and unjust. All wars that are progressive are just, and all wars that impede progress are unjust.
Almost all wars, perhaps all, are trade wars connected with some material interest. They are always disguised as sacred wars, made in the name of God, or civilization or progress. But all of them, or almost all of the wars, have been trade wars.
If you start studying history closer, you'll find that most all wars are based on false flag operations to get people - to convince the people that they're under attack in some way so that they will support the wars.
Does history warrant the conclusion that religion is necessary to morality - that a natural ethic is too weak to withstand the savagery that lurks under civilization and emerges in our dreams, crimes and wars? ... There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.