[iogames]

Originally Posted by Wayne Luke

Wars are started on philosophical, territorial and ideological reasons. Actually man just needs an excuse to go to war as we are a violent race and always have been. Wars existed before religion when early Homo Sapien was fighting Neanderthal for territory and food.

Even if a "leader" goes to war and says it is done under God, then it isn't necessarily a religious war. However you will find that the parties are often times of different ideological views even if that isn't the actual cause. While the U.S. is primarily Christian and Iraq is primarily Islamic, the issue wasn't really a religious war. Some may have you think it was religious but its really territorial and resource related. If the new government is friendly to the occupying state, then you can use their resources for less cost. In this case its oil. In the future it will most likely be food and water.

In recent times, wars have been about territorial conquest (e.g. WWI, WWII), self-liberation (U.S. Revolution, French Revolution, Pakistan), lack of centralized power (Somalia, Rwanda, Columbia, Nicaragua) territorial expansion (Spanish American War, Native American war) or spreading non-religious ideology (China v. Taiwan, Korea, Vietnam). Finally we have retaliation and resource wars. Rwanda and Somalia could be attributed to a lack of resources as well as power. The current conflict in Afghanistan is based on retaliation. Superficially, retaliation is also the reason for the conflict in Iraq but that isn't justified and its a thinly veiled resource war. People want to make these religious but they aren't really. Even the conflict in Bosnia was started about lack of authority and resources in a splintering country rather than religion to begin with. However people of similar thought and ideology will tend to seek protection within their own social groups and bring those ideologies into the conflict. This is what happened when we started seeing ethnic cleansing in that region.

Very few wars in history can be directly attributed to religion. Mainly the Crusades from the 10th through 14th centuries as the Catholic church solidified its power over Europe and tried to retake Jerusalem. Previous to Christianity, most warring nations absorbed the religions and customs of those they conquered. This is why there are so many gods in the Roman and Greek pantheons. This is why you see temples to Diana and Isis side by side in Europe, Asia and Africa. This isn't to say that religious conflict didn't exist before Christianity. However it was much different than a "Convert or Die" philosophy that had been instilled in Europe over a millennium. Its quite ironic that some people felt that using a tool of piece (Christianity) was perfect for solidifying power and war over a continent. Its a wonder that it took so long for their hold to be broken but after the conquest of the Roman Empire by the Germanic tribes, they found a perfect opportunity to fill a power vacuum and capitalize on it.

Man! you're wasting your talent here... bad thing that you like vB...
do you write for magazines or another kind of publication? have you been a teacher?