Is Religion the Reason for Wars?

by: Ahmad Alzeabi

Many people say religion is the cause of war, and there is a subtle truth of it; killing
did happen in the name of religion in different parts of the world. However,
committing any crime in the name of "someone" is not an evidence to find this
"someone" guilty; it is just something said.

Religion dates back to tens of centuries ago and is therefore recognized theoretically
by its authentic texts, and practically by its followers. Useless to say that many
followers did commit crimes and start wars. Surprisingly, however, comparing these
actions to the authentic texts of religions gives a clear mismatch.

Take the Torah's Ten Commandments for instance, the sixth of them says "Thou shalt
not murder" Deuteronomy 5:6-17. Moreover, in Bible one finds "Have nothing to do
with a false charges and do not put an innocent or honest person to death, for I will
not acquit the guilty." Exodus 23:7. Equally important are the clear verses in Quran
that condemn murder (Nor take life - which Allah has made sacred - except for just
cause.) Alisraa Verse 33. So how come we had , crusades, Jewish violence against
Palestinians, and recently ISIS outrageous actions of killing and distortion in the name
of religion with all of these clear texts?

Apparently, there are serious discrepancies between the principal part of religion and
the real life application of its principles. With the principal part set beforehand by a
supposed-to-be-believed-in God (who is the supernatural being), this part is supposed
to be well tested and well stated. However, the practical part is held by followers to
the religion who are humans and are ego prone, and that is the most serious trouble
in the real life application of religion and consequently (and more seriously) in
introducing the religion to non-believers in God; as those nonbelievers will not bother
themselves search the religious literature and find out the original intact version of
religion, but will however be content with knowing about religion through the actions
of the so called followers, which contributes to making the situation even worse.

Ego plays a main role in the life of human individuals as well as groups alike. To the
sake of proving a group's supremacy, increasing a group's gains, or proving another
group wrong, ego drives the whole individuals of a group to be aggressive and to use
every possible tool for that, including religion, and here religion becomes wrongly
accused of all that insanity while it was nothing to those so called followers but a mere
tool, with all wars and all insanity only started by blind egos.

The evidence of this effect of ego is found in quarrels between different schools of the
same religion which became categories created by followers overriding the authentic
version of the religion, and each category got its own followers, and here is how ego
can always find its way to make the objective purpose of religion subjective. One is
reminded by prophet Muhammed's saying to his comrades once after a battle: "We
come back from the minor jihad to the major one" meaning the quarrel with ego to
keep objective in following religion.

Probably those who believe that religion is the cause of wars are not blamed; one can
easily imagine how a couple of crimes committed by people driving police cars will
make one fear police cars, but this is in no way an evidence that Police is the sponsor
of crimes. However, one should not be carried away by this, because when one sees
people using a useful machine in a dangerously chaotic way, one should be
encouraged to refer to that machine's manual instead of using it the way they do or
abandoning the use of it altogether.

The fact is that the inactive part of religion (the authentic texts of it) will remain
blocked most of the time by the active part of it (the followers of that religion) through
whose actions religion is all recognized to outsiders.