What
causes religious conflict?
Instead of rejecting all religion, let us look for a way to resolve
conflict between people from different belief systems.
By Kim Michaels
Some people use religious conflict as a justification for rejecting
all religion and spirituality. They say that conflict is built into
religion itself, and therefore all religion is bad. There are two problems
with this approach.
One is that throughout recorded history people have always had spiritual
needs.
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We have
a need for a basic understanding of life.
-
We have
a need for a sense of meaning and purpose.
-
We have
a need to feel connected to something greater than ourselves.
These needs
seem to be universal to all cultures and time periods. And in every
culture people have attempted to use religion to meet their spiritual
needs. Therefore, denying the validity of religion will leave many people
with unfulfilled spiritual needs.
In the Western world many people have attempted to deny their spiritual
needs or to rationalize them out of existence. Yet many people have
instead developed a sense of emptiness that materialism simply cannot
fill. So it seems that denying the validity of religion isn’t
the best way to resolve religious conflict. It is almost like saying
that to avoid food poisoning, we should simply stop eating.
Another problem with using conflict to reject all religion is that religious
conflict might not have an objective existence. There are no temples
or churches in which nonbelievers will be struck dead upon entering.
And although some religious texts say that in the distant past certain
Gods killed nonbelievers, in our modern times all religiously motivated
killing seems to be done by human beings. So we might consider that
religious conflicts exists primarily, perhaps exclusively, in the minds
of human beings. This then opens up a new approach to resolving such
conflicts.
Religion doesn’t kill—people kill
After the 2001 terrorist attacks, many Christians came to see Islam
as a violent religion affected by the concept of Jihad, or holy war.
The problem with this approach is that the vast majority of Muslims
were as shocked by the attacks as were Christians. Most Muslims do not
see their religion as violent, and they consider Jihad as a purely spiritual
type of warfare.
On the other hand, Christianity has also been deeply affected by the
concept of holy war. The medieval Crusades against Muslims is one obvious
example. However, a more recent example is the war between Catholics
and Protestants in Northern Ireland. And many Christians hold the firm
belief that Christianity is the only true religion and that all non-Christians
will burn in Hell.
An important consideration is that while Christianity has led to extremism
and fanaticism, most Christians are not extremists. The same holds true
for Muslims and the members of most other religions. So it seems that
in most cases only a minority of the followers of a particular religion
go to the extreme of being willing to kill in the name of God. This
points to the conclusion that it is not religion in itself that leads
to conflict. It is people’s approach
to religion that leads to conflict.
This seemingly simple conclusion opens up a world of opportunities for
promoting religious unity and tolerance. We now see that religious conflict
is caused by a particular attitude towards, a particular approach to,
religion. It now becomes clear to us that if we want to reduce religious
conflicts, we need to take a closer look at the approach that causes
people to go to the extreme. However, this is not a simple topic, and
we must caution against taking a simplistic view. We must especially
caution against finger-pointing and denial.
Can we resolve
religious conflict?
We have now seen that religious conflict is caused by a particular approach
to religion. We have said that this approach causes people to go into
the extreme of thinking that it is justified to kill in the name of
God. However, this is where we need to be careful not to react with
denial or finger pointing.
Obviously, most religious or spiritual people are not willing to kill
people in the name of God. It is therefore easy for these people to
point the finger and say that others are responsible for religious extremism.
They might point to other religions than their own or they might point
to a small group of extremists and deny that they have anything to do
with creating or encouraging extremism.
Today, the vast majority of Christians would be opposed to a holy war.
Yet in the Middle Ages things were different. Obviously, only a minority
of all Christians took up arms and joined the Crusades. Yet most Christians
actively supported the Crusades, as did the medieval church. So one
might say that when a knight used his sword to kill a Muslim, he was
not acting entirely on his own accord. He was simply an electrode, a
forerunner for a larger culture which, through their attitudes and beliefs,
had set the stage for the act of killing nonbelievers.
Although most modern Christians would not participate in a Crusade,
there are certain elements of Christian culture (or the approach that
Christians take to religion) that have not changed fundamentally since
the middle ages. Most Christians still use the same scriptures, and
some are members of the same church. Many Christians still believe that
Christianity is the only true religion and that all non-Christians will
go to Hell. When the United States went to war against Iraq in 2003,
many American Christians openly talked about a “just” war.
Likewise, although most Muslims did not support the 2001 terrorist attacks,
many Muslims believe in ideas that indirectly support the approach to
religion taken by the terrorists. Most Muslims believe Islam is the
only true religion and that non-believers will be punished by Allah.
Many Muslims accept, or refuse to denounce, a milder version of Jihad.
The important conclusion here is that if we want to understand or eliminate
religious extremism, we cannot simply point the finger at another religion
or another religious culture. We cannot deny the responsibility to consider
whether our approach to religion, our religious culture, somehow supports,
encourages or fails to discourage extremism. In other words, extremism
cannot be separated from the larger culture in which it emerges.
We must we willing to consider how this culture leads some people
to become extremists.
Psychological imbalances
Before we move on, let us touch upon the issue of psychological imbalances.
You have two people who grew up in the same religious culture. One becomes
a normal, peaceful citizen and the other becomes a terrorist. Obviously,
there must be individual differences that come into play.
There is no doubt that many religious extremists have psychological
imbalances. Therefore, religion and spirituality must address this issue
and help people heal such imbalances. Nevertheless, it is also a fact
that most imbalanced people do not become religious extremists, but
criminals or mental patients. Therefore we cannot explain religious
extremism as the effect of mental illness alone.
Even though some extremism is obviously caused by psychological problems,
we still cannot deny that a religious culture can play a part in encouraging
extremism. Now let us look at which elements of religious culture can
encourage extremism.
Let us now consider
How a religious culture can encourage
extremism.
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Copyright
© 2005 by Kim Michaels |
