Reddit reviews The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict

>Really, how many religious conflicts are not, at their core, about politics, nationalism and ethnicity?

Some would say all

Relevant: the myth of religious violence, by William Cavanaugh, though his argument is slightly different than the OP's.

He doesn't deny that, for example, Christian eschatology is of large influence on how the US government handles Israel and the middle-east, or that religious texts can and sometimes do inspire people to become violent.

Rather he argues that there is no good basis to distinguish secular and religious ideologies and institutions, and that the separation of church and state and the rise of the secular nation-state was the cause and not the result of the so-called "religious wars" of 16th-17th century Europe.

There's also a video on youtube somewhere where he discusses the ideas in his book.

A must read for people interested in the subject and who want something more scholarly: William T Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict.

You are correct that many Christians take offense, and of course they do. Their fundamental sense of self is rooted in belief. However, the atheist is no different. You yourself indicated this with the last line of your post. When one's paradigm is challenged, it is normal for those who are not used to dialogue with other paradigms to lash out like white blood cells attacking a foreign body in the bloodstream. At the very least, if you're looking for academic dialogue about Christianity, you'll need to stop going to non-academic Christians. The examples of Trump representing (and in my opinion, "Christian" Trump supporters) true orthodox (correct) theology is simply false, along with any Christian institution that "bears fruit" of violence, etc.

As an aside, I also picked up a small but strong presupposition common among many atheists/agnostics (assuming atheism/ag from your post, correct if wrong) that the book is closed academically on the existence of God. I would assume that you're aware that at the most basic level, the belief in or not in God is indeed still a belief and can never be proven; this is much more problematic for the positivist than the believer. Fortunately for us all, the metamodern landscape has resulted in the contesting of all things secular and religious. There is no longer (nor ever was) a separation.

I would recommend these books to you for some further reading on the point: #1 and #2. Here are to qualifying reviews on the first text. 1 and 2.

Hope it helps.

http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/336/html

http://www.amazon.ca/Religous-Violence-Secular-Ideology-Conflict/dp/0195385047

Sorry, I don't think I should legally pdf the second link; so I used an amazon buy this instead. I'll follow up with Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_violence

The main point I want to express is that Religious Terrorism is quite specifically a subset of Religious Violence. If you do a mental check-list of the claims that they cite as qualifying for R-Terrorism; you will note that it seems to only really qualify for R-Violence.

http://www.jeramyt.org/papers/girard.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoating#The_.22scapegoat_mechanism.22_in_philosophical_anthropology

When you really dig into it; they are essentially using a scapegoat methodology to navigate themselves through the composition fallacy.

Using these two together leads them to the bandwagon system which is being purposed to push c-51.

Thought this place wouldn't be complete without Cavanaugh's famous position, which he's expressed through lecture, as above linked (skip to about 2:15 to get to the lecture), as well as essay and book.

Cavanaugh's almost fanatically empirical in his approach, especially in his book, which I'm reading now; example after example after example.

Are you able to confirm the thesis then?

Thanks for the other tip. I've read some reviews (Amazon and journal). The most upvoted review on Amazon says:

>This compelling and deeply insightful book, obviously misread by the previous reviewer, does not attempt to advance a hypothesis about the causal origins of religious activism.

So I wonder you misread it, too? Certainly the Publishers Weekly review says:
>[H]e is also a sensitive scholar who aptly dissects religious terrorism as a sociological phenomenon.

The other reviews don't seem to suggest the books sheds much light on the topic we are discussing.

A book I stumbled across while reading was this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195385047/ref=cm_cd_asin_lnk. You, in turn, might like a look at that!

>Encyclopedia of Wars (2004) edited by American historians Charles Phillips and Alen Alexrod considers 1763 wars over five millennia, and conclude that 123 (7%) involve a religious conflict.

http://www.fishpond.com.au/Books/Encyclopedia-of-Wars-Charles-Phillips-Edited-by-Alan-Axelrod-Edited-by/9780816028511

> The Encyclopedia of War (2012), edited by Gordon Martel, concludes that 6% of the wars listed can be labelled religious wars.

http://au.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-140519037X.html

> William T. Cavanaugh concludes in Myth of Religious Violence (2009) that all wars that are classed as "religious" have secular (economic or political) ramifications.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Religious-Violence-Ideology/dp/0195385047

> Matthew White has done an assessment of killings from wars and genocide (not exactly the same question as we are considering, but related). I don't know anything about Matthew, but while he hasn't documented his information as well as the above study, he appears to be a fair minded atheist whose conclusions are worth considering.

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/gunsorxp.htm#XP

The world isn't as simple as you think it is. 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

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/25/-sp-karen-armstrong-religious-violence-myth-secular

http://static.visionofhumanity.org/sites/default/files/Peace%20and%20Religion%20Report.pdf

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-alan-lurie/is-religion-the-cause-of-_b_1400766.html

I suggest you get a copy of this. It was very enlightening https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Religious-Violence-Ideology-Conflict/dp/0195385047?ie=UTF8&tag=ththve-20

>I am offended that word "god" is in the motto

>I would argue that the motto is an imposition, albeit a minor one.

And I am offended of the name "Jupiter" for a planet. That's an imposition because we cannot change it and I don't believe in those gods.

>when the actual debate is about the spirit of separation of church and state and a desire to not be misrepresented.

If you are interested on the difference between state and church, must read this.

The fact is that the idea of God has never been restricted to religion. In the same way, communities are not restricted to churches.