As a non-anthropologist questioning an anthropologist on this issue, I feel kind of like a one-armed man stepping into a boxing match. But what the heck... I think you're blending two issues into one.Originally Posted by marct
In waging wars, the "God-given rights" argument is the case that one rules by divine right - and, by extension, has divine justification for the war that the king/pope orders to be waged. That is an exercise of political power, legitimized (or attempted to be legitimized) by an appeal to a religious justification. A study of the Crusades, for example, reveals more about politics than religious fervor. Political leaders attempt to justify their decision and rally the people to the cause after the decision is made to fight. There is no logical reasoning by which the king concludes that "our religion and theirs are incompatible - we must fight!" Rather, he concludes that "I want control over that port/peninsula/mountain pass/city/etc."
Back in the day, people could be rallied with claims that they were defending the faith, when they were really mere instruments and fodder for a tyrant. Nowadays, with religion being less salient amongst western countries, we are rallied with patriotism, good vs bad, and being "pro-democracy." In non-western countries - particularly the mideast - it is still common for leaders to rally their people by appealing to religion, but is this really warfare over religion? When we invaded Iraq, Hussein attempted to claim that he was defending Islam. What did religion have to do with his degree of compliance with UN resolutions regarding inspection and verification that he dismantled his WMD program? He used religion, in vain, to rally his people to justify a political decision.
So, I think it confuses the issue to say that wars are fought over religion. Instead, I would say that cultures tend to form along largely religious lines - since culture is heavily influenced by core values and beliefs, which are often derived from religion. Eventually those cultures political interests' diverge and then conflict. They clash due to politics. And then the political leaders fall back on a common religious identity in an attempt to rally support for the political cause. If there were no human tendency to seek non-worldly explanations about our existence, cultures would form along some line other than religion, and cultures would still clash.
Seriously, though, we also had "religious" conflict in N Ireland where the fight was really about political power and economic opportunity and social oppression. We also had the "religious" war in Bosnia between a bunch of folk who wrote their language in Cyrrillic and another bunch who wrote it in Roman; a bunch who celebrate Christmas on 25 Dec and a bunch who celbrate it 12 days later, and a buch who don't celebrate it at all! OBTW, thes bunches overlap
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