Religious violence

Violence practiced in the name of religion

Part of a series on

Discrimination

Forms

* Institutional
* Reverse
* Structural
* Statistical
* Systemic
* Taste-based

Attributes

* Age
* Caste
* Class
* Disability
* Economic
* Genetic
* Hair texture
* Height
* Language
* Dialect
* Looks
* Mental disorder
* Nationality or citizenship
* Race / Ethnicity
* Reverse
* Skin color
* Scientific racism
* Rank
* Sex
* Reverse
* Sexual orientation
* Species
* Size
* Viewpoint

Social

* Arophobia
* Anti-albinism
* Acephobia
* Adultism
* Anti-altruistic
* Anti-autism
* Anti-homelessness
* Anti-drug addicts
* Anti-intellectualism
* Anti-intersex
* Anti-left handedness
* Anti-Masonry
* Aporophobia
* Audism
* Biphobia
* Fear of children
* Clannism
* Elitism
* Ephebiphobia
* Health
* mental
* in poverty
* Fatphobia
* Gayphobia
* Gerontophobia
* Heterosexism
* HIV/AIDS stigma
* Hypergamy
* Homophobia
* In-group
* Leprosy stigma
* Lesbophobia
* Against men
* Misandry
* Misogyny
* Misogynoir
* Nepotism
* Outgroup
* Perpetual foreigner
* Pregnancy
* Sectarianism
* Supremacism
* Aryanism
* Black
* Hutu
* Chauvinism
* Han
* Female
* Human
* Nordicism
* Male
* Ultranationalism
* White
* Transphobia
* Non-binary
* Transmisogyny
* Trans men
* Vegaphobia
* Xenophobia

Religious

* Persecution of non-believers
* Atheism
* Blasphemy law
* Religious censorship
* In Islam
* Apostasy
* Religious police
* Jizya
* Religious persecution
* In China
* Exclusivism
* Baháʼí Faith
* Buddhism
* Christianity
* Persecution
* Catholicism
* Eastern Orthodoxy
* Coptic Christianity
* Jehovah's Witnesses
* LDS or Mormon
* Protestantism
* Tewahedo Orthodoxy
* post–Cold War era
* Falun Gong
* Hinduism
* Persecution
* Untouchability
* Islam
* Persecution
* Ahmadiyya
* Shi'ism
* Sufism
* Sunnism
* minority Muslim
* Judaism
* Persecution
* Neopaganism
* Rastafari
* Serers
* Sikhism
* Yazidism
* Zoroastrianism

Race or ethnicity

* Afghan
* Pashtun
* Hazara
* African
* Fulani
* Igbo
* Serers
* Albanian
* Arab
* Armenian
* Asian
* France
* South Africa
* United States
* Assyrian
* Australian
* Austrian
* Azerbaijani
* Black people
* African Americans
* China
* South Africa
* Bengali
* Catalan
* Chechen
* Chinese
* Han people
* Colombian
* Croat
* Dutch
* English
* Estonian
* Filipino
* French
* Finnish
* Georgian
* German
* Greek
* Haitian
* Hazara
* Hungarian
* Indian
* Indonesian
* Indigenous people
* Australia
* Canada
* United States
* Iranian
* Irish
* Italian
* Japanese
* Jewish
* Eliminationist
* New
* Religious
* Anti-Yiddish
* Zionist
* Korean
* Kurdish
* Lithuanian
* Malay
* Māori
* Mexican
* Middle Eastern
* Mongolian
* Montenegrin
* Nigerian
* Pakistani
* Palestinians
* Pashtun
* Polish
* Portuguese
* Quebec
* Romani
* Romanian
* Russian
* Scottish
* Serb
* Slavic
* Somali
* Spanish
* Taiwanese
* Tatar
* Thai
* Tibetan
* Turkish
* Ukrainian
* Uyghur
* Venezuelan
* Vietnamese
* Welsh
* White people

Manifestations

* Algorithmic bias
* Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric
* SPLC-designated list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups
* Blood libel
* Bullying
* Cancel culture
* Capital punishment for homosexuality
* Carnism
* Cognitive
* Compulsory sterilization
* Corrective rape
* Counter-jihad
* Cultural genocide
* Defamation
* Democide
* Dog whistle
* Domicide
* Economic
* Education
* Academic
* In curricula
* Sexism
* Eliminationism
* Eliminationist antisemitism
* Employment
* Enemy of the people
* Environmental racism
* Ethnic cleansing
* Ethnic conflict
* Ethnic hatred
* Ethnic joke
* Ethnocide
* Excellence
* Gender-based dress codes
* Cosmetics policy
* High heel policy
* Forced conversion
* Freak show
* Funding
* Gay bashing
* Gendercide
* Transgender genocide
* Genital modification and mutilation
* Circumcision
* Female genital mutilation
* Intersex medical interventions
* Genocide
* examples
* Glass ceiling
* Hate crime
* Disability hate crime
* Violence against LGBTQ people
* Violence against transgender people
* Hate group
* Hate speech
* Institutional
* Abuse
* Discrimination
* Racism
* Homeless dumping
* Housing
* Hypergamy
* Age disparity
* Indian rolling
* International inequality
* Kill Haole Day
* Lavender scare
* LGBTQ+
* grooming conspiracy theory
* Linguicide
* Lynching
* Media
* Minority stress
* Moral exclusion
* Mortgage
* Murder music
* Native American mascots
* Braves
* Blackhawks
* Chiefs
* Occupational
* Apartheid
* Inequality
* Injustice
* Segregation
* Opposition to immigration
* Paper genocide
* Persecution
* Pogrom
* Political
* Political repression
* Ideological repression
* Purge
* Racialization
* Religious persecution
* Religious terrorism
* Religious violence
* Religious war
* Scapegoating
* Selective enforcement
* Selective prosecution
* Sentencing disparity
* Sexual harassment
* Sex-selective abortion
* Slut-shaming
* Structural abuse
* Structural discrimination
* Structural evil
* Structural inequality
* Structural violence
* Suicide
* Untermensch
* Trans bashing
* Victimisation
* Violence against women
* White flight
* White genocide conspiracy theory
* Wife selling
* Witch hunt

Policies

* Algorithmic wage discrimination
* Age of candidacy
* Apartheid
* in South Africa
* in Israel
* Blood purity
* Blood quantum
* Breadwinner model
* Conscription and sexism
* Disabilities
* Catholic
* Jewish
* Disparate impact
* Fagging
* Gender pay gap
* Gender roles
* Protecting Women's Private Spaces Act
* Gerontocracy
* Gerrymandering
* Ghetto benches
* Internment
* Jewish quota
* Opposition to LGBTQ rights
* MSM blood donation restrictions
* No kid zone
* Numerus clausus (as religious or racial quota)
* One-drop rule
* Racial quota
* Racial steering
* Redlining
* Same-sex marriage (laws and issues prohibiting)
* Segregation
* age
* racial
* Jim Crow laws
* Nuremberg Laws
* Segregation academy
* religious
* sexual
* in Islam
* Social exclusion
* Sodomy law
* State atheism
* State religion
* Ugly law
* Voter suppression
* White Australia policy

Countermeasures

* Affirmative action
* Anti-discrimination law
* Anti-racism
* Audit study
* Autism rights movement
* Blind audition
* Constitutional colorblindness
* Cross-sex friendship
* Cultural assimilation
* Cultural pluralism
* Diversity, equity, and inclusion
* Diversity training
* Empowerment
* Fat acceptance movement
* Feminism
* Fighting Discrimination
* Golden Rule
* Hate speech laws by country
* Human rights
* Intersex human rights
* Korenizatsiia
* LGBTQ rights
* Music in the movement against apartheid
* Nonviolence
* Racial integration
* Reappropriation
* Rock Against Sexism
* Self-determination
* Social integration
* Toleration
* Transgender rights movement
* Universal suffrage
* Women's rights

Related topics

* Allophilia
* Alterity
* Amatonormativity
* Bias
* Cisnormativity
* Civil liberties
* Criminalization of homosexuality
* Dehumanization
* Diseases of despair
* Diversity
* Multiculturalism
* Neurodiversity
* Ethnic penalty
* Figleaf
* Gender-blind
* Heteronormativity
* Historical eugenics
* Internalized oppression
* Intersectionality
* Mad pride
* Masculism
* Medical model of disability
* autism
* Oikophobia
* Oppression
* Police brutality
* Respect
* Polyculturalism
* Power distance
* Prejudice
* Prisoner abuse
* Racial bias in criminal news in the United States
* Racism by country
* Racial color blindness
* Religious intolerance
* Second-generation gender bias
* Snobbery
* Social equity
* Social exclusion
* Social identity threat
* Social model of disability
* Social privilege
* Christian
* male
* white
* Social stigma
* Speciesism
* Stereotype
* threat
* The talk

* v
* t
* e

Not to be confused with Religious persecution.

Religious violence covers phenomena in which religion is either the target or perpetrator of violent behavior.[1] All the religions of the world contain narratives, symbols, and metaphors of violence and war[2] and also nonviolence and peacemaking.[3] Religious violence is violence that is motivated by, or in reaction to, religious precepts, texts, or the doctrines of a target or an attacker. It includes violence against religious institutions, people, objects, or events. Religious violence includes both acts which are committed by religious groups and acts which are committed against religious groups.

The term “religious violence” has proven difficult to define, however. Violence is a very broad concept, because it is used against both human and non-human entities.[4] Furthermore, violence can have a wide variety of expressions, from blood shedding and physical harm to violation of personal freedoms, passionate conduct or language, or emotional outbursts like fury or passion.[5][6] Adding to the difficulty, religion is a complex and modern Western concept,[7][8] one whose definition still has no scholarly consensus.[6][7][8][9]

Religious violence, like all forms of violence, is a cultural process which is context-dependent and highly complex.[10] Thus, oversimplifications of religion and violence often lead to misguided understandings of the causes for acts of violence, as well as oversight of their rarity.[10] Violence is perpetrated for a wide variety of ideological reasons, and religion is generally only one of many contributing social and political factors that may foment it. For example, studies of supposed cases of religious violence often conclude that the violence was driven more by ethnic animosities than by religious worldviews.[11] Historical circumstances in conflicts often are not linear, but socially and politically complex.[12][7][13] Due to the complex nature of religion, violence, and the relationship between them, it is often difficult to discern whether religion is a significant cause of violence from all other factors.[6][12]

Indeed, the link between religious belief and behavior is not linear. Decades of anthropological, sociological, and psychological research have all concluded that behaviors do not directly follow from religious beliefs and values because people's religious ideas tend to be fragmented, loosely connected, and context-dependent, just like other domains of culture and life.[14]

Religions, ethical systems, and societies rarely promote violence as an end in of itself.[4] At the same time, there is often tension between a desire to avoid violence and the acceptance of justifiable uses of violence to prevent a perceived greater evil that permeates a culture.[4]

## History of the concept of religion

[edit]

Main article: Definition of religion

Religion is a modern Western concept[9] not used before the 1500s when the compartmentalized concept of religion arose, where religious entities are considered separate from worldly ones.[7] Furthermore, parallel concepts are not found in many cultures, and there is no equivalent term for "religion" in many languages.[7][9]

Ancient sacred texts like the Bible and the Quran did not have a concept of religion in their original languages, nor did their authors or the cultures to which they belonged.[7][8] Likewise, there is no precise equivalent of "religion" in Hebrew, and Judaism does not draw clear distinctions between religious, national, racial, or ethnic identities.[15]

The modern concept of religion as an abstraction which entails distinct sets of beliefs or doctrines is a recent invention in the English language. Such usage began with texts from the 17th century due to the splitting of Christendom during the Protestant Reformation, as well as more prevalent colonization and globalization in the age of exploration which involved contact with numerous foreign and indigenous cultures and non-European languages.[16][17] For example, in Asia, it was Europeans who first applied the terms "Buddhism", "Hinduism", "Taoism", and "Confucianism" in the 19th century.[16][18]

Thus, scholars have found it difficult to develop a consistent definition of religion, with some giving up on the possibility of a definition[19][20] and others rejecting the term entirely.[citation needed] Still others argue that regardless of its definition, it is not appropriate to apply it to non-Western cultures.[21]

## Definition of violence

[edit]

Violence is a complicated concept which broadly carries descriptive and evaluative components that range from harming non-human entities to human self-harm.[4] Religious scholar Ralph Tanner cites the definition of violence in the Oxford English Dictionary as "far beyond [the infliction of] pain and the shedding of blood".[5] He argues that, although violence clearly encompasses injury to persons or property, it also includes, "the forcible interference in personal freedom, violent or passionate conduct or language [and] finally passion or fury".[5]

Similarly, a study of the Crusades' impacts on the Muslim world concludes:

> The word "violence" can be defined to extend far beyond pain and shedding blood. It carries the meaning of physical force, violent language, fury, and, more importantly, forcible interference.[22]

Old Testament scholar Terence Fretheim expands on this, writing:

> For many people, ... only physical violence truly qualifies as violence. But, certainly, violence is more than killing people, unless one includes all those words and actions that kill people slowly. The effect of limitation to a "killing fields" perspective is the widespread neglect of many other forms of violence. We must insist that violence also refers to that which is psychologically destructive, that which demeans, damages, or depersonalizes others. In view of these considerations, violence may be defined as follows: any action, verbal or nonverbal, oral or written, physical or psychical, active or passive, public or private, individual or institutional/societal, human or divine, in whatever degree of intensity, that abuses, violates, injures, or kills. Some of the most pervasive and most dangerous forms of violence are those that are often hidden from view (against women and children, especially); just beneath the surface in many of our homes, churches, and communities is abuse enough to freeze the blood. Moreover, many forms of systemic violence often slip past our attention because they are so much a part of the infrastructure of life (e.g., racism, sexism, ageism).[23]

Non-physical abuse in religious settings is described as religious abuse.[24] Religious abuse may also include the misuse of religion for selfish, secular, or ideological ends, such as the abuse of a clerical position.[25][26]

## Relationship between religion and violence

[edit]

According to philosopher of religion Steve Clarke, "currently available evidence does not allow us to determine whether religion is, or is not, a significant cause of violence". He lists multiple problems that make it impossible to establish a causal relationship, such as difficulties in distinguishing motive/pretext and inability to verify if they would necessarily lead to any violent action, the lack of consensus on definitions of both violence and religion among scholars, and the inability to see if the presence of religion actually adds or subtracts from general levels of violence, since no society without religion has ever existed to compare with.[6]

In his book Sacred Fury: Understanding Religious Violence, religious sociologist Charles Selengut characterizes the phrase "religion and violence" as "jarring", asserting that "religion is thought to be opposed to violence and a force for peace and reconciliation". He acknowledges, however, that "the history and scriptures of the world's religions tell stories of violence and war even as they speak of peace and love".[27] Similarly, religious scholar Ralph Tanner describes the combination of religion and violence as "uncomfortable", asserting that religious thinkers generally avoid the conjunction of the two and argue that religious violence is "only valid in certain circumstances which are invariably one-sided".[28]

According to historian Matthew Rowley, three hundred contributing causes of religious violence have been discussed by scholars. In his study of causes of religious violence, though, he cautions that "violence in the name of God is a complex phenomenon and oversimplification further jeopardizes peace because it obscures many of the causal factors".[29] In another article, Rowley lists 15 ways to address the complexity of violence, both secular and religious, and he also claims that secular narratives of religious violence tend to be erroneous or exaggerated due to their oversimplification of religious people and religious people's beliefs, their rationale based on false dichotomies, and their ignorance of complex secular causes of supposed "religious violence". He writes that when one is discussing religious violence, they should also note that the overwhelming majority of religious people do not get inspired to engage in violence.[10]

In contrast, religious scholar Hector Avalos simplifies religious causes of violence to access over four scarce resources: divine will and knowledge, primarily through scripture; sacred space; group privileging; and salvation. Not all religions have or use these four resources. He believes that religious violence is particularly untenable because these resources are never verifiable, and, unlike claims to scarce physical resources like water or land, it cannot be adjudicated objectively.[30]

Regina Schwartz, scholar of English literature, Judaism, and Christianity, argues that all monotheistic religions are inherently violent because of an exclusivism that inevitably fosters violence against those that are considered outsiders.[31] In a review of her book Curse of Cain for The New Yorker, Lawrence Weschler asserts that Schwartz is concerned not just with the violent legacy of Abrahamic religions, but with their genocidal legacy as well.[32]

Michael Jerryson, scholar of comparative religion and religious violence, argues that scholarship on religion and violence sometimes overlooks non-Abrahamic religions. This tendency leads to considerable problems, one of which is the support of faulty associations. For example, he finds a persistent global pattern of alignment in which religions such as Islam are viewed as causes of violence and religions such as Buddhism are viewed as causes of peace.[33]

Another lens with which to view religious violence is through political violence, which religion can often play a central role in. This is especially true of terrorism, in which acts of violence are committed against unarmed non-combatants in order to inspire fear and achieve political goals. Terrorism expert Martha Crenshaw suggests that religion is a mask used by political movements which seek to draw attention to their causes and gain support. Crenshaw outlines two approaches when observing religious violence in order to grasp its underlying mechanisms.[34] One approach, called the instrumental approach, sees religious violence as acting as a rational calculation to achieve some political end. Thus, she claims that increasing the costs of performing such violence will help curb it. Crenshaw's other approach sees religious violence as stemming from the organizational structure of religious communities, with the heads of these communities acting as political figureheads. Crenshaw suggests that threatening the internal stability of these organizations (perhaps by offering them a nonviolent alternative) will dissuade religious organizations from performing political violence. A third approach sees religious violence as the result of community dynamics rather than a religious duty.[35] Systems of meanings which are developed within these communities allow religious interpretations to justify violence, so acts like terrorism occur because people are part of communities of violence.[36] In this way, religious violence and terrorism are performances which are designed to inspire an emotional reaction from both those in the community and those outside of it.

### Sectarian violence

[edit]

These paragraphs are an excerpt from Sectarian violence.[edit]

Sectarian violence or sectarian strife is a form of communal violence which is inspired by sectarianism, that is, discrimination, hatred or prejudice between different sects of a particular mode of an ideology or different sects of a religion within a nation or community. Religious segregation often plays a role in sectarian violence. The concept can be applied to both inter- as well as intra-group violence and is context dependent for instance considering political, social, and cultural factors. Prominent strategies debated within peace and conflict studies for ending violence – including sectarian forms of it - are the Inter-group contact theory and the liberal peace theory.

## Challenges to the view that religions are violent

[edit]

See also: Pacifism and religion, Religion and peacebuilding, Religions for Peace, Christian pacifism, Peace in Islamic philosophy, and Pacifism in Islam

### Behavioral studies

[edit]

Decades of research conducted by anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists have established that "religious congruence", the assumption that religious beliefs and values are tightly integrated in an individual's mind or that religious practices and behaviors follow directly from religious beliefs or that religious beliefs are chronologically linear and stable across different contexts, is actually rare, despite being commonly assumed. People's religious ideas are fragmented, loosely connected, and context-dependent, as in all other domains of culture and in life. The beliefs, affiliations, and behaviors of an individual are complex activities that have many sources, including culture.[14]

### Myth of religious violence

[edit]

According to historian Andrew Holt's review of estimates of causes of wars, historians have not embraced narratives that religion has caused frequent conflict or war since historically, religion was not a common source for war or conflict.[12]

American Catholic theologian William T. Cavanaugh has argued in his book The Myth of Religious Violence that "attempts to separate religious and secular violence are incoherent". He asserts that "the idea that religion has a tendency to promote violence is part of the conventional wisdom of Western societies and it underlies many of our institutions and policies, from limits on the public role of churches to efforts to promote liberal democracy in the Middle East". Cavanaugh challenges this conventional wisdom, arguing that there is a "myth of religious violence", by asserting that:[37]

* Religion is not a universal and transhistorical phenomenon. What counts as "religious" or "secular" in some context is a function of configurations of power both in the West and in lands colonized by the West. The distinctions of "Religious/Secular" and "Religious/Political" are modern Western inventions.
* The invention of the concept of "religious violence" helps the West reinforce superiority of Western social orders to "nonsecular" social orders, namely Muslims at the time of publication.
* The concept of "religious violence" can be and is used to legitimate violence against non-Western "Others".
* Peace depends on a balanced view of violence and recognition that so-called secular ideologies and institutions can be just as prone to absolutism, divisiveness, and irrationality.

Historian and religious studies scholar Jeffrey Burton Russell generally concurs with Cavanaugh in his book Exposing Myths about Christianity, arguing that numerous cases of supposed religious violence, such as the Thirty Years War, the French Wars of Religion, the Protestant-Catholic conflict in Ireland, the Sri Lankan Civil War, and the Rwandan Civil War, were all primarily motivated by social, political, and economic issues rather than religion.[13]

Religious studies scholars John Morreall and Tamara Sonn have extended Russell's claims by arguing that all cases of violence and war include social, political, and economic dimensions. They posit that since there is no consensus on definitions of "religion" among scholars and since there is no way to isolate "religion" from the rest of the more likely motivational dimensions, it is incorrect to label any violent event as "religious". Since dozens of examples exist from the European wars of religion that show that people from the same religions fought each other and that people from different religions became allies during these conflicts, the motivations for these conflicts were not about religion, they claim.[38] Russell adds that the fact that these wars of religion ended after rulers agreed to practice their religions in their own territories means that the conflicts were more related to political control than people's religious views.[13]

Robert Pape, a political scientist who specializes in suicide terrorism, has made this case for modern suicide attacks, which are often labeled as "religious" by media outlets.[39] Pape compiled the first complete database of every documented suicide bombing from 1980–2003. He argues that news reports about suicide attacks are profoundly misleading, arguing, "There is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world's religions". After studying 315 suicide attacks carried out over the last two decades, he concludes that suicide bombers' actions stem fundamentally from political conflict, not religious beliefs.[39]

Anthropologist Scott Atran conducted extensive interviews on suicide terrorism with terrorists from Al Qaeda, Hamas, Taliban, and others to see why some are willing to die and kill for and he noted that they do not die for a cause, they die for their communities, family, friends; all for the hope of a better future for their communities.[40]

Author Karen Armstrong, of Irish Catholic descent, echoes these sentiments by arguing that so-called religious conflicts such as the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and the European wars of religion were all deeply political conflicts at their cores rather than religious ones, especially since people from different faiths became allies and fought against each other in no consistent fashion. She claims that the Western concept of the separation of church and state, first advocated by Reformer Martin Luther, laid a foundation for viewing religion and society as divided, when in reality, religion and society were intermixed to the point that no one made such a distinction, nor was there a defining cut between such experiences in the past. She argues the during the Enlightenment, religion began to be seen as individualistic and private, despite the fact that modern secular ideals like the equality of all human beings and intellectual and political liberty were historically promoted in religious idioms of the past.[41]

Anthropologist Jack David Eller has also asserted that religion is not inherently violent, arguing that "religion and violence are clearly compatible, but they are not identical"; that "violence is neither essential to nor exclusive to religion"; and that "virtually every form of religious violence has its nonreligious corollary".[42][43] Moreover, he argues that religion "may be more a marker of the [conflicting] groups than an actual point of contention between them".[44]

On the other hand, historians such as Jonathan Kirsch have likened religious persecutions like the European inquisitions to persecutions in Stalin's Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, McCarthy blacklists, and other secular events.[45]

John Teehan, scholar of the philosophy and cognitive science of religion, takes a position that integrates the two sides of this debate. He describes the traditional response in defense of religion as "draw[ing] a distinction between the religion and what is done in the name of that religion or its faithful". Teehan argues, "this approach to religious violence may be understandable but it is ultimately untenable and prevents us from gaining any useful insight into either religion or religious violence". He takes the position that "violence done in the name of religion is not a perversion of religious belief ... but flows naturally from the moral logic inherent in many religious systems, particularly monotheistic religions ...". However, Teehan acknowledges that "religions are also powerful sources of morality". He asserts, "religious morality and religious violence both spring from the same source, and this is the evolutionary psychology underlying religious ethics".[46]

### Secularism as a response to religious violence

[edit]

Byron Bland, scholar of conflict and peacemaking, asserts that one of the most prominent reasons for the "rise of the secular in Western thought" was the reaction against the religious violence of the 16th and 17th centuries. He asserts, "The secular was a way of living with the religious differences that had produced so much horror. Under secularity, political entities have a warrant to make decisions independent from the need to enforce particular versions of religious orthodoxy. Indeed, they may run counter to certain strongly held beliefs if made in the interest of common welfare. Thus, one of the important goals of the secular is to limit violence".[47] Theologian William T. Cavanaugh writes that what he calls, "the myth of religious violence", as a reason for the rise of secular states may be traced to earlier philosophers, such as Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Voltaire.[48] Cavanaugh delivers a detailed critique of this idea in his 2009 book The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict.

### Secular violence

[edit]

See also: Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution, Anti-clericalism in Mexico, State atheism, Soviet anti-religious legislation, Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union, Persecution of Christians in the Eastern Bloc, Antireligious campaigns in China, and Persecution of Christians in North Korea

Gender and sexuality scholar Janet Jakobsen writes, "just as religion and secularism are relationally defined terms—terms that depend on each other—so also the legitimization of violence through either religious or secular discourse is also relational".[49] She argues that the idea that "religion kills" is used to legitimate secular violence, and that, similarly, the idea that "secularism kills" is used to legitimate religious violence.[49] According to John Carlson, critics who are skeptical of "religious violence" contend that excessive attention is often paid to acts of religious violence compared to acts of secular violence, and that this leads to a false essentializing of both religion as being prone to violence and the secular as being prone to peace.[50] According to Janet Jakobsen, secularism and modern secular states are much more violent than religion, and modern secular states in particular are usually the source of most of the world's violence.[51] Carlson states that by focusing on the destructive capacity of government, Jakobsen "essentializes another category — the secular state — even as she criticizes secular governments that essentialize religion's violent propensities".[50] Tanner states that secular regimes and leaders have used violence to promote their own agendas.[52] Violence committed by secular governments and people, including the anti-religious, have been documented including violence or persecutions focused on religious believers and those who believe in the supernatural in multiple regions[53][54] notably such as in the Soviet Union,[55][56][57] Cambodia,[58] China,[59]and Mexico.[60] In the 20th century, estimates state that over 25 million Christians died from secular antireligious violence worldwide.[61] Historian Andrew Holt estimates that 67 million to 100 million deaths from secular ideologies occurred in the 20th century alone and that such ideologies did not result in a decrease in violence.[12]

Religions have been persecuted more in the past 100 years than at any other time in history.[62] According to Geoffrey Blainey, atrocities have occurred under all ideologies, including in nations which were strongly secular such as the Soviet Union, China, and Cambodia.[63] Talal Asad, an anthropologist, states that equating institutional religion with violence and fanaticism is incorrect and that devastating cruelties and atrocities done by non-religious institutions in the 20th century should not be overlooked. He also states that nationalism has been argued as being a secularized religion.[64]

## By religion

[edit]

### Abrahamic religions

[edit]

Hector Avalos argues that, because religions claim to have divine favor for themselves, both over and against other groups, this sense of self-righteousness leads to violence because conflicting claims of superiority, based on unverifiable appeals to God, cannot be objectively adjudicated.[65]

Similarly, Eric Hickey writes, "the history of religious violence in the West is as long as the historical record of its three major religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with their mutual antagonisms and their struggles to adapt and survive despite the secular forces that threaten their continued existence."[66]

Regina Schwartz argues that all monotheistic religions, including Christianity, are inherently violent because of their exclusivism which inevitably fosters violence against those who are considered outsiders.[31] Lawrence Wechsler asserts that Schwartz is not just arguing that Abrahamic religions have a violent legacy, instead, she is arguing that their legacy is actually genocidal in nature.[67]

### Christianity

[edit]

Main article: Christianity and violence

See also: History of Christian thought on persecution and tolerance, Sectarian violence among Christians, Crusades, Inquisition, and Christian terrorism

The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of French Protestants in 1572 I Believe in the Sword and Almighty God (1914) by Boardman Robinson

Before the 11th century, Christians had not developed the doctrine of "Holy war", the belief that fighting itself might be considered a penitential and spiritually meritorious act.[68][69] Throughout the Middle Ages, force could not be used to propagate religion.[70] For the first three centuries of Christianity, the Church taught the pacifism of Jesus and notable church fathers such as Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Origen, and Cyprian of Carthage even went as far as arguing against joining the military or using any form of violence against aggressors.[69] In the 4th century, St. Augustine developed a "Just War" concept, whereby limited uses of war would be considered acceptable in order to preserve the peace and retain orthodoxy if it was waged: for defensive purposes, ordered by an authority, had honorable intentions, and produced minimal harm. However, the criteria he used was already developed by Roman thinkers in the past and "Augustine's perspective was not based on the New Testament."[69] St. Augustine's "Just War" concept was widely accepted, however, warfare was not regarded as virtuous in any way.[68] Expression of concern for the salvation of those who killed enemies in battle, regardless of the cause for which they fought, was common.[68] In the medieval period which began after the fall of Rome, there were increases in the level of violence due to political instability. By the 11th century, the Church condemned this violence and warring by introducing: the "Peace of God" which prohibited attacks on clergy, pilgrims, townspeople, peasants and property; the "Truce of God" which banned warfare on Sundays, Fridays, Lent, and Easter; and it imposed heavy penances on soldiers for killing and injuring others because it believed that the shedding of other people's blood was the same as shedding the blood of Christ.[69]

During the 9th and 10th centuries, multiple invasions occurred in some regions in Europe and these invasions lead them to form their own armies in order to defend themselves and by the 11th century, this slowly lead to the emergence of the Crusades, the concept of "holy war", and terminology such as "enemies of God".[68] By the time of the Crusades, "Despite all the violence during this period, the majority of Christians were not active participants but were more often its victims" and groups which used nonviolent means to peacefully dialogue with Muslims were established, like the Franciscans.[69]

Today, the relationship between Christianity and violence is the subject of controversy because one view advocates the belief that Christianity advocates peace, love and compassion despite the fact that in certain instances, its adherents have also resorted to violence.[31][65][71] Peace, compassion and forgiveness of wrongs done by others are key elements of Christian teaching. However, Christians have struggled since the days of the Church Fathers with the question of when the use of force is justified (e.g. the Just war theory of Saint Augustine). Such debates have led to concepts such as just war theory. Throughout history, certain teachings from the Old Testament, the New Testament and Christian theology have been used to justify the use of force against heretics, sinners and external enemies. Heitman and Hagan identify the Inquisitions, Crusades, wars of religion, and antisemitism as being "among the most notorious examples of Christian violence".[72] To this list, Mennonite theologian J. Denny Weaver adds "warrior popes, support of capital punishment, corporal punishment under the guise of 'spare the rod spoil the child,' justifications of slavery, world-wide colonialism under the guise of converting people to Christianity, the systemic violence against women who are subjected to the rule of men."[improper synthesis?] Weaver employs a broader definition of violence that extends the meaning of the word to cover "harm or damage", not just physical violence per se. Thus, under his definition, Christian violence includes "forms of systemic violence such as poverty, racism, and sexism".[73]

Christian theologians point to a strong doctrinal and historical imperative against violence that exists within Christianity, particularly Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, which taught nonviolence and "love of enemies". For example, Weaver asserts that Jesus' pacifism was "preserved in the justifiable war doctrine which declares that all war is sin even when it is occasionally declared to be a necessary evil, and in the prohibition of fighting by monastics and clergy as well as in a persistent tradition of Christian pacifism".[74]

Between 1420 and 1431 the Hussite heretics fended off 5 anti-Hussite Crusades ordered by the Pope.

Many authors highlight the ironical contradiction between Christianity's claims to be centered on "love and peace" while, at the same time, harboring a "violent side". For example, Mark Juergensmeyer argues: "that despite its central tenets of love and peace, Christianity—like most traditions—has always had a violent side. The bloody history of the tradition has provided images as disturbing as those provided by Islam, and violent conflict is vividly portrayed in the Bible. This history and these biblical images have provided the raw material for theologically justifying the violence of contemporary Christian groups. For example, attacks on abortion clinics have been viewed not only as assaults on a practice that Christians regard as immoral, but also as skirmishes in a grand confrontation between forces of evil and good that has social and political implications.",[75]: 19–20  sometimes referred to as spiritual warfare. The statement attributed to Jesus "I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword" has been interpreted by some as a call to arms to Christians.[75]

Maurice Bloch also argues that the Christian faith fosters violence because the Christian faith is a religion, and religions are violent by their very nature; moreover, he argues that religion and politics are two sides of the same coin—power.[76] Others have argued that religion and the exercise of force are deeply intertwined, but they have also stated that religion may pacify, as well as channel and heighten violent impulses.[77]

Forward with God! (1915) by Boardman Robinson

In response to the view that Christianity and violence are intertwined, Miroslav Volf and J. Denny Weaver reject charges that Christianity is a violent religion, arguing that certain aspects of Christianity might be misused to support violence but that a genuine interpretation of its core elements would not sanction human violence but would instead resist it. Among the examples that are commonly used to argue that Christianity is a violent religion, J. Denny Weaver lists "(the) Crusades, the multiple blessings of wars, warrior popes, support of capital punishment, corporal punishment under the guise of 'spare the rod and spoil the child,' justifications of slavery, world-wide colonialism in the name of converting people to Christianity, the systemic violence against women who are subjected to the rule of men." Weaver characterizes the counter-argument as focusing on "Jesus, the beginning point of Christian faith,... whose Sermon on the Mount taught nonviolence and love of enemies; who nonviolently faced his death at the hands of his accusers; whose nonviolent teaching inspired the first centuries of pacifist Christian history and was subsequently preserved in the justifiable war doctrine that declares that all war is sin even when it is occasionally declared to be a necessary evil, and in the prohibition of fighting by monastics and clergy as well as in a persistent tradition of Christian pacifism."[73]

Miroslav Volf acknowledges the fact that "many contemporaries see religion as a pernicious social ill that needs aggressive treatment rather than medicine from which a cure is expected." However, Volf contests the claim that "(the) Christian faith, as one of the major world religions, predominantly fosters violence." Instead of this negative assessment, Volf argues that Christianity "should be seen as a contributor to more peaceful social environments."[78] Volf examines the question of whether or not Christianity fosters violence, and he has identified four main arguments which claim that it does: that religion by its nature is violent, which occurs when people try to act as "soldiers of God"; that monotheism entails violence, because a claim of universal truth divides people into "us versus them"; that creation, as in the Book of Genesis, is an act of violence; and the argument that the intervention of a "new creation", as in the Second Coming, generates violence.[71] Writing about the latter, Volf says: "Beginning at least with Constantine's conversion, the followers of the Crucified have perpetrated gruesome acts of violence under the sign of the cross. Over the centuries, the seasons of Lent and Holy Week were, for the Jews, times of fear and trepidation; Christians have perpetrated some of the worst pogroms as they remembered the crucifixion of Christ, for which they blamed the Jews. Muslims also associate the cross with violence; crusaders' rampages were undertaken under the sign of the cross."[79] In each case, Volf concluded that the Christian faith was misused in order to justify violence. Volf argues that "thin" readings of Christianity might be used mischievously to support the use of violence. He counters, however, by asserting that "thick" readings of Christianity's core elements will not sanction human violence, instead, they will resist it.[80]

Volf asserts that Christian churches suffer from a "confusion of loyalties". He asserts that "rather than the character of the Christian faith itself, a better explanation as to why Christian churches are either impotent in the face of violent conflicts or are active participants in them is derived from the proclivities of its adherents which are at odds with the character of the Christian faith." Volf observes that "(although) they are explicitly giving ultimate allegiance to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, many Christians in fact seem to have an overriding commitment to their respective cultures and ethnic groups."[81]

#### The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

[edit]

Main article: Mormonism and violence

Further information: Blood atonement

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has an early history of violence. It was motivated by Anti-Mormonism and began with the religious persecution of the Church by well respected citizens, law enforcement, and government officials. Ultimately, this persecution lead to several historically well-known acts of violence. These ranged from attacks on early members, such as the Haun's Mill massacre following the Mormon Extermination Order to one of the most controversial and well-known cases of retaliation violence, the Mountain Meadows massacre. This was the result of an unprovoked response to religious persecution whereby an innocent party which was traveling through Church occupied territory was attacked on 11 September 1857.

### Islam

[edit]

Main article: Islam and violence

Sketch by an eye-witness of the massacre of Armenians in Sasun in 1894

Islam has been associated with violence in a variety of contexts, including in the context of punishment of apostasy in Islam, sectarian violence among Muslims, Jihadism and Islamic terrorism. In Arabic, the word jihād translates into English as "struggle". Jihad appears in the Qur'an and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of Allah (al-jihad fi sabil Allah)".[82][83] The context of the word can be seen in its usage in Arabic translations of the New Testament such as in 2 Timothy 4:7 where St. Paul expresses keeping the faith after many struggles.[84] A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is mujahideen. Jihad is an important religious duty for Muslims. A minority among the Sunni scholars sometimes refer to this duty as the sixth pillar of Islam, though it occupies no such official status.[85] In Twelver Shi'a Islam, however, Jihad is one of the ten Practices of the Religion. For some the Quran seem to endorse unequivocally to violence.[86] On the other hand, some scholars argue that such verses of the Quran are interpreted out of context.[87][88]

According to a study from Gallup, most Muslims understand the word "Jihad" to mean individual struggle, not something violent or militaristic.[84] Muslims use the word in a religious context to refer to three types of struggles: an internal struggle to maintain faith, the struggle to improve the Muslim society, or the struggle in a holy war.[89] The prominent British orientalist Bernard Lewis argues that in the Qur'an and the hadith jihad implies warfare in the large majority of cases.[90] In a commentary of the hadith Sahih Muslim, entitled al-Minhaj, the medieval Islamic scholar Yahya ibn Sharaf al-Nawawi stated that "one of the collective duties of the community as a whole (fard kifaya) is to lodge a valid protest, to solve problems of religion, to have knowledge of Divine Law, to command what is right and forbid wrong conduct".[91]

Indonesian military forces evacuate refugees from Ambon during the Maluku sectarian conflict in 1999.

According to Irfan Omar, Islam has a history of nonviolence and negotiation when dealing with conflicts: for instance, early Muslims experienced 83 conflicts with non-Muslims and only 4 of these ended up in armed conflict.[84]

#### Terrorism in Islam

[edit]

Main article: Islamic terrorism

In western societies the term jihad is often translated as "holy war".[92][93] Scholars of Islamic studies often stress the fact that these two terms are not synonymous.[94] Muslim authors, in particular, tend to reject such an approach, stressing the non-militant connotations of the word.[95][96]

Islamic terrorism refers to terrorism that is engaged in by Muslim groups [citation needed] or individuals who are motivated by either politics, religion or both. Terrorist acts have included airline hijacking, kidnapping, assassination, suicide bombing, and mass murder.[97][98][99]

The tension reached a climax on 11 September 2001 when Islamic terrorists flew hijacked commercial airplanes into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The "War on Terror" has triggered anti-Muslim sentiments within most western countries and throughout the rest of the world. Al-Qaeda is one of the most well-known Islamic extremist groups, created by Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden. Al-Qaeda's goal is to spread the "purest" form of Islam and Islamic law. Based on his interpretation of the Quran, bin Laden needed to do "good" by inflicting terror upon millions of people. Following the terrorist attacks on 11 September, bin Laden praised the suicide bombers in his statement: "the great action you did which was first and foremost by the grace of Allah. This is the guidance of Allah and the blessed fruit of jihad." In contrast, echoing the overwhelming majority of people who interpreted these events, President Bush said on 11 September, "Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward. ... And freedom will be defended. Make no mistake, the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts."[100]

Wounded people following a bomb attack by Boko Haram in Nigeria, in April 2014

Controversies surrounding the subject include disagreements over whether terrorist acts are self-defense or aggression, national self-determination or Islamic supremacy; whether Islam can ever condone the targeting of non-combatants; whether some attacks described as Islamic terrorism are merely terrorist acts committed by Muslims or terrorist acts motivated by nationalism; whether Wahhabism are at the root of Islamic terrorism, or simply one cause of it; how much support for Islamic terrorism exists in the Muslim world[101] and whether support of terrorism is only a temporary phenomenon, a "bubble", now fading away.[102]

### Judaism

[edit]

Main articles: Judaism and violence, Jewish extremist terrorism, and Milkhemet Mitzvah

As the religion of the Jews, who are also known as Israelites, Judaism is based on the Torah and the Tanakh, which is also referred to as the Hebrew Bible, and it guides its adherents on how to live, die, and fight via the 613 commandments which are referred to as the 613 Mitzvahs, the most famous of which are the Ten Commandments, one of which is the commandment You shall not murder.

The Torah also lists instances and circumstances which require its adherents to go to war and kill their enemies. Such a war is usually referred to as a Milkhemet Mitzvah, a "compulsory war" which is obligated by the Torah or God, or a Milkhemet Reshut a "voluntary war".

#### Criticism

[edit]

Burggraeve and Vervenne describe the Old Testament as being full of violence and they also cite it as evidence for the existence of both a violent society and a violent god. They write that, "(i)n numerous Old Testament texts the power and glory of Israel's God is described in the language of violence." They assert that more than one thousand passages refer to Yahweh as acting violently or supporting the violence of humans and they also assert that more than one hundred passages involve divine commands to kill humans.[103]

On the basis of these passages in the Old Testament, some Christian churches and theologians argue that Judaism is a violent religion and the god of Israel is a violent god. Reuven Firestone asserts that these assertions are usually made in the context of claims that Christianity is a religion of peace and the god of Christianity is one who only expresses love.[104]

#### Other views

[edit]

Some scholars such as Deborah Weissman readily acknowledge the fact that "normative Judaism is not pacifist" and "violence is condoned in the service of self-defense."However, the Talmud prohibits violence of any kind towards one's neighbour.[105] J. Patout Burns asserts that, although Judaism condones the use of violence in certain cases, Jewish tradition clearly posits the principle of minimization of violence. This principle can be stated as "(wherever) Jewish law allows violence to keep an evil from occurring, it mandates that the minimal amount of violence must be used in order to accomplish one's goal."[106]

The love and pursuit of peace, as well as laws which require the eradication of evil, sometimes by the use of violent means, co-exist in the Jewish tradition.[107][108][109][110]

The Hebrew Bible contains instances of religiously mandated wars[111][112][113] which often contain explicit instructions from God to the Israelites to exterminate other tribes, as in Deuteronomy 7:1–2 or Deuteronomy 20:16–18. Examples include the story of the Amalekites (Deuteronomy 25:17–19, 1 Samuel 15:1–6),[114] the story of the Midianites (Numbers 31:1–18),[115] and the battle of Jericho (Joshua 6:1–27).[116][117][118][119][120]

#### Judging biblical wars

[edit]

Main articles: The Bible and violence and War in the Hebrew Bible

The biblical wars of extermination have been characterized as campaigns of "genocide" by several authorities,[121][122][123] because the Torah states that the Israelites annihilated entire ethnic groups or tribes: the Israelites killed all Amalekites, including men, women, and children (1 Samuel 15:1–20); the Israelites killed all men, women, and children in the battle of Jericho(Joshua 6:15–21), and the Israelites killed all men, women and children of several Canaanite tribes (Joshua 10:28–42).[124] However, some scholars[who?] believe that these accounts in the Torah are exaggerated or metaphorical.[citation needed]

#### Arab-Israeli conflict

[edit]

During the Palestine-Israeli conflict as well as during the broader Arab–Israeli conflict, a small number of people have used the Torah (TaNaKh|Tanakh) to justify anti-Palestinianism and the killing of Palestinians, but the IDF has stated "That we don't condone the killing of innocent Palestinians".[125][126][127]

#### Portraying Palestinians as "Amalekites"

[edit]

On several occasions, Jewish fundamentalists have associated Palestinians with biblical antagonists, particularly with the Amalekites. For example, Rabbi Israel Hess has recommended that Palestinians be killed, based on biblical verses such as 1 Samuel 15.[128][129][130]

### Buddhism

[edit]

Main articles: Buddhism and violence, Sōhei, 969 Movement, and Bodu Bala Sena

### Hinduism

[edit]

The Thuggee was a secret cult of assassins whose members were both Hindus and Muslims.

Main articles: Hindu terrorism, Violence against Muslims in independent India, Violence against Christians in India, and Religious violence in India

### Neo-paganism

[edit]

In the United States and Europe, neo-pagan beliefs have been associated with many terrorist incidents. Although the majority of neo-pagans oppose violence and racism, folkish factions of Odinism, Wotanism, and Ásatrú emphasize their Nordic cultural heritage and idolize warriors.[131] For these reasons, a 1999 Federal Bureau of Investigation report on domestic terrorism which was titled Project Megiddo described Odinism as "[lending] itself to violence and [having] the potential to inspire its followers to violence."[132] As of 2017, the Southern Poverty Law Center has recognized at least two active neo-pagan hate groups in the United States.[133] Many white supremacists (especially those white supremacists who are in prison) are converting to Odinism at increasing rates, citing the impurity of Christianity and the failure of previous groups to accomplish goals as the primary reasons for their conversion.[134][135] Similarities between Odinism and other extremist groups such as Christian Identity facilitate conversions.[136] The targets of neo-pagan violence are similar to those of white supremacist terrorists and nationalist terrorists, but an added target includes Christians and churches.

### Sikhism

[edit]

Main article: Sikh extremism

### Indigenous religions

[edit]

Within Prehistoric societies, war ceremonies were one of the main parts of indigenous religions such as some Native American religions.[137]

## Notable incidents

[edit]

* Murder of Alan Berg — Defunct American white supremacist group the Order was founded by avid practitioners of Wotanism such as David Lane and Robert Jay Mathews.[132] Lane was convicted of the 1984 murder of Jewish radio host Alan Berg.[138]
* Church burnings — A wave of church burnings, such as during the early Norwegian black metal scene in the 1990s, has been cited as an act of neo-pagan terrorism.[139] The arsons coincided with a resurgence in the popularity of European black metal. This genre of music featured the imagery and ideas of neo-paganism, Satanism, and nationalism. The targets were Christian churches, and up to 28 churches were targeted during this period.[140] Popular black metal musician Varg Vikernes, a noted neo-pagan and nationalist, was convicted of three of these arsons and charged with a fourth attempt.
* Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting — Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. shot and killed three people at a Kansas Jewish community center in 2014. Prior to becoming an Odinist, Miller Jr. was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.[141]
* 2012 Ramu violence

## Conflicts and wars

[edit]

The Crusades were a series of military campaigns fought mainly between Roman Catholic Europe and Muslims. Depicted here is the Siege of Antioch from the First Crusade. Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople by Gustave Doré (1832–1883)

Main article: Religious war

Some authors have stated that "religious" conflicts are not exclusively based on religious beliefs but should instead be seen as clashes of communities, identities, and interests that are secular-religious or at least very secular.[44][39]

Some have asserted that attacks are carried out by those with very strong religious convictions such as terrorists in the context of a global religious war.[142] Robert Pape, a political scientist who specializes in suicide terrorism argues that much of the modern Muslim suicide terrorism is secularly based.[39] Although the causes of terrorism are complex, it may be safe to assume that terrorists are partially reassured by their religious views that their god is on their side and that it will reward them in Heaven for punishing unbelievers.[143][144]

These conflicts are among the most difficult to resolve, particularly when both sides believe that God is on their side and that He has endorsed the moral righteousness of their claims.[143] One of the most infamous quotes which is associated with religious fanaticism was uttered in 1209 during the siege of Béziers, a Crusader asked the Papal Legate Arnaud Amalric how to tell Catholics from Cathars when the city was taken, to which Amalric replied: "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius", or "Kill them all; God will recognize his."[145]

## Ritual violence

[edit]

Further information: ritual slaughter, human sacrifice, and animal sacrifice

Ritual violence may be directed against victims (e.g., human and nonhuman animal sacrifice and ritual slaughter) or self-inflicted (religious self-flagellation).

According to the hunting hypothesis, created by Walter Burkert in Homo Necans, carnivorous behavior is considered a form of violence. Burkett suggests that the anthropological phenomenon of religion grew out of rituals that were connected with hunting and the associated feelings of guilt over the violence that hunting required.[146]

## See also

[edit]

* Antireligion
* Army of God (terrorist organization)
* Blood atonement
* Blood libel
* Boko Haram
* Conflict resolution
* Criticism of religion
* Hundred Years' War
* International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief
* Islamic State
* Religious discrimination
* Religious fanaticism
* Religious intolerance
* Religious segregation
* Religious supremacism
* Religious terrorism
* Taiping Rebellion
* Taliban
* Warriors of Christ the King
* Witch-hunt

## References

[edit]

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40. ^ Atran, Scott (2011). Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists. London: Penguin Books. pp. xi–xiii. ISBN 9780241951767.
41. ^ Armstrong, Karen (24 September 2014). "The Myth of Religious Violence". The Guardian.
42. ^ Eller, Jack David (2010). Cruel Creeds, Virtuous Violence: Religious Violence Across Culture and History. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-61614-218-6. "As we have insisted previously, religion is not inherently and irredeemably violent; it certainly is not the essence and source of all violence."
43. ^ Eller, Jack David (2010). Cruel Creeds, Virtuous Violence: Religious Violence Across Culture and History. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-61614-218-6. "Religion and violence are clearly compatible, but they are not identical. Violence is one phenomenon in human (and natural existence), religion is another, and it is inevitable that the two would become intertwined. Religion is complex and modular, and violence is one of the modules—not universal, but recurring. As a conceptual and behavioral module, violence is by no means exclusive to religion. There are plenty of other groups, institutions, interests, and ideologies to promote violence. Violence is, therefore, neither essential to nor exclusive to religion. Nor is religious violence all alike... And virtually every form of religious violence has its nonreligious corollary."
44. ^ a b Eller, Jack David (2007). Introducing Anthropology of Religion. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-40896-7. "When a pure or hybrid religious group and/or its interests are threatened, or merely blocked from achieving its interests by another group, conflict and violence may ensue. In such cases, although religion is part of the issue and religious groups form the competitors, or combatants, it would be simplistic or wrong to assume the religion is the "cause" of the trouble or that the parties are "fighting about religion". Religion in the circumstances may be more a marker of the groups than an actual point of contention between them."
45. ^ Kirsch, Jonathan (2009). The Grand Inquisitor's Manual: A History of Terror in the Name of God. HarperOne. ISBN 978-0-06-173276-8.
46. ^ Teehan, John (2010). In the Name of God: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Ethics and Violence. John Wiley and Sons. pp. 145–147\. ISBN 9781444320701.
47. ^ Bland, Byron (May 2003). "Evil Enemies: The Convergence of Religion and Politics" (PDF). p. 4\. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 December 2010.
48. ^ Yerxa, Donald A. (9 April 2011). "The Myth of Religious Violence: An Interview with William Cavanaugh". Historically Speaking. 12 (2): 10–11\. doi:10.1353/hsp.2011.0015. S2CID 162329393 – via Project MUSE.
49. ^ a b Jakobsen, Janet (16 May 2011). "Gender in the Production of Religious and Secular Violence". In Murphy, Andrew (ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 125\. ISBN 9781405191319.
50. ^ a b Carlson, John (2011). "1. Religion and Violence: Coming to Terms with Terms". In Murphy, Andrew (ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 12\. ISBN 978-1405191319.
51. ^ Jakobsen, Janet (2004). "7. Is Secularism Less Violent Than Religion?". In Jakobsen, Janet; Castelli, Elizabeth (eds.). Interventions: Activists and Academics Respond to Violence. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 53, 63. ISBN 978-1403965820.
52. ^ Ralph E.S. Tanner (2011). "The Harmful Secular Ideologies". Ames Tribune. Archived from the original on 6 December 2017. Retrieved 18 November 2011.
53. ^ Rummel, Rudolph J. (1994). Death By Government. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56000-927-6.
54. ^ Rummel, Rudolph J. (1997). Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder since 1900. Lit Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8258-4010-5.
55. ^ Froese, Paul (2008). The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25529-6.
56. ^ Gabel, Paul (2005). And God Created Lenin: Marxism Vs. Religion in Russia, 1917–1929. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-59102-306-7.
57. ^ Peris, Daniel (1998). Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-3485-3.
58. ^ Kiernan, Ben (2008). The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-14434-5.
59. ^ Meisner, Maurice (1999). Mao's China and After: A History of the People's Republic. Free Press. ISBN 978-0-684-85635-3.
60. ^ Bantjes, Adrian (1997). "Idolatry and Iconoclasm in Revolutionary Mexico: The De-Christianization. Campaigns, 1929–1940". Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos. 13 (1): 87–121\. doi:10.2307/1051867. JSTOR 1051867.
61. ^ Nelson, James M. (27 February 2009). Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality. Springer. p. 427\. ISBN 9780387875729. Retrieved 19 December 2012.
62. ^ O'Brien, Joanne; Palmer, Martin (2007). The Atlas of Religion. University of California Press. p. 63. ISBN 9780520249172. "However, the violence has not only been from the religious side. In the last 100 years, the major religions have been more heavily persecuted than at any other time in history. And most of this has not been religion persecuting religion. It has been ideologies persecuting religion. This ranges from the Mexican socialist revolution in 1924 attacking the power, land holdings and ultimately the clergy and buildings of the Catholic Church, through the attacks on all faiths in the Soviet Union, the Holocaust of the Jews by the Nazis, the massive onslaught of the Chinese Cultural Revolution against all faiths in the 1960s and the assaults on the Baha'is in Iran from the 1970s onwards."
63. ^ Geoffrey, Blainey (2016). A Short History of Christianity : Essentials of the Christian life. SPCK. p. 543\. ISBN 978-0-281-07620-8. OCLC 1125110569.
64. ^ Asad, Talal (2003). Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (10. printing. ed.). Stanford University Press. pp. 100, 187–190\. ISBN 978-0804747684.
65. ^ a b Avalos, Hector (2005). Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence. Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.
66. ^ Hickey, Eric W. (2003). Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime. SAGE. p. 217\. ISBN 978-0-7619-2437-1.
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68. ^ a b c d Peters, Edward (1998). "Introduction". The First Crusade: The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and Other Source Materials (2 ed.). Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0812216561.
69. ^ a b c d e Duffey, Michael (22 June 2015). "2. Christianity: From Peacemaking to Violence to Home Again". In Omar, Irfan; Duffey, Michael (eds.). Peacemaking and the Challenge of Violence in World Religions. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781118953426.
70. ^ Johnson, James (2011). "21. Just War and Jihad of the Sword". In Murphy, Andrew R. (ed.). The Blackwell Companion to Religion and Violence. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978-1405191319.
71. ^ a b Volf, Miroslav (2008). "Christianity and Violence". In Hess, Richard S.; Martens, E.A. (eds.). War in the Bible and terrorism in the twenty-first century. Eisenbrauns. pp. 1–17\. ISBN 978-1-57506-803-9. Retrieved 1 June 2010.
72. ^ International Encyclopedia of Violence Research, Volume 2. Springer. 2003. ISBN 9781402014666.
73. ^ a b J. Denny Weaver (2001). "Violence in Christian Theology". Cross Currents. Archived from the original on 25 May 2012. Retrieved 27 October 2010. "I am using broad definitions of the terms "violence" and "nonviolence". "Violence" means harm or damage, which obviously includes the direct violence of killing -- in war, capital punishment, murder \--but it also covers the range of forms of systemic violence such as poverty, racism, and sexism. "Nonviolence" also covers a spectrum of attitudes and actions, from the classic Mennonite idea of passive nonresistance through active nonviolence and nonviolent resistance that would include various kinds of social action, confrontations and the posing of alternatives that do not cause bodily harm or injury."
74. ^ J. Denny Weaver (2001). "Violence in Christian Theology". Cross Currents. Archived from the original on 25 May 2012. Retrieved 27 October 2010.
75. ^ a b Mark Juergensmeyer (2004). Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24011-7.
76. ^ Bloch, Maurice (1992). Prey into Hunter: The Politics of Religious Experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
77. ^ McKinnon, Andrew (2014). "Religion and the Civilizing Process: The Pax Dei Movement and the Christianization of Violence in the Process of Feudalization". In Andrew McKinnon; Marta Trzebiatowska (eds.). Sociological Theory and the Question of Religion. Theology and Religion in Interdisciplinary Perspective Series in Association with the BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group. Ashgate. ISBN 978-1-4094-6553-9.
78. ^ Volf, Miroslav (2002). "Christianity and Violence". Retrieved 27 October 2010.
79. ^ Volf 2008, p. 13
80. ^ Volf, Miroslav (12 March 2002). "Christianity and violence". Retrieved 13 November 2010.
81. ^ Volf, Miroslav (June 1998). "The Social Meaning of Reconciliation" (PDF). Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe. 18 (3). Retrieved 17 November 2010.
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83. ^ Josef W. Meri, ed. (2005). Medieval Islamic Civilization: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-96690-0. `{{cite encyclopedia}}`: Missing or empty `|title=` (help), Jihad, p. 419
84. ^ a b c Omar, Irfan (22 June 2015). "1. Jihad and Nonviolence in the Islamic Tradition". In Omar, Irfan; Duffey, Michael (eds.). Peacemaking and the Challenge of Violence in World Religions. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781118953426. [page needed]
85. ^ Esposito, John L. (2016). Islam : the straight path. Oxford University Press. p. 93\. ISBN 978-0-19-063215-1. OCLC 935514239.
86. ^ Harris, Sam (17 February 2006). "Who Are the Moderate Muslims?". HuffPost. Retrieved 2 January 2023.
87. ^ Sohail H. Hashmi, David Miller, Boundaries and Justice: Diverse Ethical Perspectives, Princeton University Press, p.197
88. ^ Khaleel Muhammad, professor of religious studies at San Diego State University, states, regarding his discussion with the critic Robert Spencer, that "when I am told ... that Jihad only means war, or that I have to accept interpretations of the Quran that non-Muslims (with no good intentions or knowledge of Islam) seek to force upon me, I see a certain agendum developing: one that is based on hate, and I refuse to be part of such an intellectual crime.""Khaleel Mohammed- San Diego State University - Religious Studies Department". Archived from the original on 8 July 2008. Retrieved 13 October 2008.
89. ^ "Jihad". BBC. 3 August 2009.
90. ^ Lewis, Bernard (1988). The Political Language of Islam. University of Chicago Press. p. 72. ISBN 978-0226476926. Cf. Watt, William M. (1976). "Islamic Conceptions of the Holy War". In Murphy, Thomas P. (ed.). The Holy War. Ohio State University Press. p. 143\. ISBN 978-0814202456.
91. ^ Shaykh Hisham Kabbani; Shaykh Seraj Hendricks; Shaykh Ahmad Hendricks. "Jihad—A Misunderstood Concept from Islam". The Muslim Magazine. Archived from the original on 17 July 2006. Retrieved 16 August 2006.
92. ^ "Libya's Gaddafi urges 'holy war' against Switzerland". BBC. 26 February 2010. Retrieved 2 January 2023.
93. ^ Peters, Rudolph (1977). Jihad in Medieval and Modern Islam. Brill Academic Pub. p. 3\. ISBN 978-9004048546.
94. ^ Crone, Patricia (2005). Medieval Islamic Political Thought. Edinburgh University. p. 363\. ISBN 978-0748621941.
95. ^ Jihad and the Islamic Law of War. Jordan: The Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought. 2009. Archived from the original on 18 August 2013.
96. ^ Peters, Rudolph (1979). Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History. Mouton Publishers. p. 118\. ISBN 978-9027933478.
97. ^ "Captured Iraqi Terrorist Ramzi Hashem Abed: Zarqawi Participated in the Plot to Assassinate Baqer Al-Hakim. We Bombed Jalal Talabani's Headquarters, the Turkish Embassy, and the Red Cross, Took Drugs, Raped University Students Who "Collaborated with the Americans"". The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
98. ^ "Abductions of and Assaults on Women". The Massacre in Mazar-I Sharif. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved 30 September 2012.
99. ^ Youssef M. Ibrahim (14 April 1988). "Algeria to Permit Abortions for Rape Victims". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 September 2012.
100. ^ Michael E. Eidenmuller (14 January 2015). "George W. Bush - 9/11 Remarks at Barksdale Air Force Base delivered 11 September, 2001, Barksdale, Louisiana". American Rhetoric. Retrieved 19 November 2015.
101. ^ Tony Blair, "Speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council", "Speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council". Archived from the original on 15 August 2006. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
102. ^ Thomas L. Friedman (20 April 2003). "The Third Bubble". The New York Times. Retrieved 30 September 2012.
103. ^ Burggraeve, Roger; Vervenne, Marc (1991). Swords into Plowshares: Theological Reflections on Peace. Peeters Publishers. pp. 82, 109. ISBN 9789068313727.
104. ^ Heft, James, ed. (2004). Beyond Violence: Religious Sources of Social Transformation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Fordham University Press. ISBN 9780823223350.
105. ^ "The Co-existence of Violence and Non-Violence in Judaism". Retrieved 9 December 2010.
106. ^ Burns, J. Patout (1996). War and Its Discontents: Pacifism and Quietism in the Abrahamic Traditions. Georgetown University Press. p. 18.
107. ^ Fighting the War and the Peace: Battlefield Ethics, Peace Talks, Treaties, and Pacifism in the Jewish Tradition. Michael J. Broyde, 1998, p. 1
108. ^ Reuven Firestone (2004), "Judaism on Violence and Reconciliation: An examination of key sources" in Beyond Violence: Religious Sources of Social Transformation in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Fordham University Press, 2004, pp. 77, 81.
109. ^ Goldsmith (Ed.), Emanuel S. (1991). Dynamic Judaism: The Essential Writings of Mordecai M. Kaplan. Fordham University Press. p. 181\. ISBN 978-0-8232-1310-8.
110. ^ Spero, Shubert (1983). Morality, Halakha, and the Jewish Tradition. Ktav Publishing House, Inc. pp. 137–318\. ISBN 978-0-87068-727-3.
111. ^ Salaita, Steven George (2006). The Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan. Syracuse University Press. p. 54\. ISBN 978-0-8156-3109-5.
112. ^ Lustick, Ian (1988). For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel. Council on Foreign Relations. pp. 131–132. ISBN 978-0-87609-036-7.
113. ^ Armstrong, Karen (2007). The Bible: A Biography. Atlantic Monthly Press. pp. 211–216\. ISBN 978-0-87113-969-6.
114. ^ A. G. Hunter "Denominating Amalek: Racist stereotyping in the Bible and the Justification of Discrimination", in Sanctified Aggression: Legacies of Biblical and Post-Biblical Vocabularies of Violence, Jonneke Bekkenkamp, Yvonne Sherwood (Eds.). 2003, Continuum Internatio Publishing Group, pp. 92–108
115. ^ Dawkins, Richard (2006). The God Delusion. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 245. ISBN 978-0-618-68000-9.
116. ^ Ehrlich, Carl. S. (1999). "Joshua, Judaism, and Genocide". In Targarona, Judit; Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (eds.). Jewish studies at the turn of the twentieth century : proceedings of the 6th EAJS congress, Toledo, July 1998. Brill. pp. 117–124\. ISBN 90-04-11558-7. OCLC 772544616.
117. ^ Dawkins, Richard (19 May 2016). The God delusion. Black Swan. pp. 289–296\. ISBN 978-1-78416-192-7. OCLC 956764823.
118. ^ Hitchens, Christopher (2007). God is not great : how religion poisons everything. New York. p. 117\. ISBN 978-0-446-57980-3. OCLC 70630426.`{{cite book}}`: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
119. ^ Selengut, Charles (12 January 2017). Sacred fury : understanding religious violence. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 20\. ISBN 978-1-4422-7685-7. OCLC 960642045.
120. ^ Cowles, C. S; Gard, Daniel; Longman, Tremper; Merrill, Eugene (June 2010). Show them no mercy : 4 views on God and Canaanite genocide. Zondervan Academic. p. 79\. ISBN 978-0-310-87376-1. OCLC 698775072.
121. ^ Kravitz, Leonard, "What is Crime?", in Crime and Punishment in Jewish Law: Essays and Responsa, Editors Walter Jacob, Moshe Zemer Berghahn Books, 1999, p. 31
122. ^ Cohn, Robert L, "Before Israel: The Canaanites as Other in Biblical Tradition", in The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions of Jewish Culture and Identity, Laurence Jay Silberstein, (Ed.), NYU Press, 1994, pp. 76–77
123. ^ Violence, Scripture, and Textual Practice in Early Judaism and Christianity By Ra'anan S. Boustan, pp. 3–5
124. ^ The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies, Donald Bloxham, A. Dirk Moses, p. 242
125. ^ Saleh Abdel Jawad (2007) "Zionist Massacres: the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem in the 1948 War" in Israel and the Palestinian Refugees, Eyal Benvenistî, Chaim Gans, Sari Hanafi (Eds.), Springer, p. 78: "... the Zionist movement, which claims to be secular, found it necessary to embrace the idea of 'the promised land' of Old Testament prophecy, to justify the confiscation of land and the expulsion of the Palestinians. For example, the speeches and letters of Chaim Weizman, the secular Zionist leader, are filled with references to the biblical origins of the Jewish claim to Palestine, which he often mixes liberally with more pragmatic and nationalistic claims. By the use of this premise, embraced in 1937, Zionists alleged that the Palestinians were usurpers in the Promised Land, and therefore their expulsion and death was justified. The Jewish-American writer Dan Kurzman, in his book Genesis 1948 ... describes the view of one of the Deir Yassin's killers: 'The Sternists followed the instructions of the Bible more rigidly than others. They honored the passage (Exodus 22:2): 'If a thief be found ...' This meant, of course, that killing a thief was not really murder. And were not the enemies of Zionism thieves, who wanted to steal from the Jews what God had granted them?'
126. ^ Carl. S. Ehrlich (1999) "Joshua, Judaism, and Genocide", in Jewish Studies at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Judit Targarona Borrás, Ángel Sáenz-Badillos (Eds). 1999, Brill. pp. 117–124.
127. ^ Rights Council, Human (2019). "Report of the detailed findings of the independent international Commission of inquiry on the protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory" (PDF). Human Rights Council. 1 (7): 251 – via Fortieth session.
128. ^ Masalha, Nur (2000). Imperial Israel and the Palestinians: The Politics of Expansion. Pluto Press. pp. 129–131\. ISBN 978-0-7453-1615-4. Retrieved 25 July 2017. "Frequently Jewish fundamentalists refer to the Palestinians as the 'Amalekites' ... of today.... According to the Old Testament, the Amalek ... were regarded as the Israelites' inveterate foe, whose 'annihilation' became a sacred duty and against whom war should be waged until their 'memory be blotted out' forever (Ex 17:16; Deut 25:17–19).... Some of the [modern] political messianics insist on giving the biblical commandment to 'blot out the memory of the Amalek' an actual contemporary relevance in the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. In February 1980, Rabbi Israel Hess ... published an article [titled] 'The Genocide Commandment in the Torah' ... which ends with the following: 'The day is not far when we shall all be called to this holy war, this commandment of the annihilation of the Amalek'. Hess quotes the biblical commandment ... 'Do not spare him, but kill man and woman, baby and suckling, ox and sheep, camel, and donkey'.... In his book On the Lord's Side Danny Rubinstein has shown that this notion permeates the Gush Emunim movement's bulletins [one of which] carried an article ... which reads 'In every generation there is an Amalek.... The Amalekism of our generation finds expression in the deep Arab hatred towards our national revival ...'... Professor Uriel Tal ... conducted his study in the early 1980s ... and pointed out that the totalitarian political messianic stream refers to the Palestinian Arabs in three stages or degrees: ... [stage] (3) the implementation of the commandment of Amalek, as expressed in Rabbi Hess's article 'The Commandment of Genocide in the Torah', in other words 'annihilating' the Palestinian Arabs'"
129. ^ See also Hunter, p. 103
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## Further reading

[edit]

Academic

* Appleby, R. Scott (2000) The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
* Avalos, Hector (2005) Fighting Words: the Origins of Religious Violence. New York: Prometheus.
* Buc, Philippe (2015) Holy War, Martyrdom and Terror: Christianity, Violence and the West. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
* Burkert, Walter. (1983). Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth. Berkeley: University of California Press
* Crocket, Clayton (ed.) (2006) Religion and Violence in a Secular World: Toward a New Political Theology. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
* Flood, Derek (2012) "The way of peace and grace". Sojourners. January 2012.
* Girard, René. (1977) Violence et le Sacré (English Violence and the Sacred). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
* Hamerton-Kelly, Robert G. (ed.) (1987) Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, René Girard and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Cultural Formation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
* Jerryson, Michael. (2010) Buddhist Warfare. New York: Oxford University Press.
* Juergensmeyer, Mark, Kitts, Margo and Jerryson, Michael (ed.) (2013) The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence. New York: Oxford University Press.
* Juergensmeyer, Mark; Kitts, Margo; Jerryson, Michael (ed.) (2016) Violence and the World's Religious Traditions: An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press.
* Juergensmeyer, Mark. (2000) Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence. Berkeley: University of California Press.
* Kitts, Margo (2018) Elements of Ritual and Violence. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
* Kitts, Margo (ed.) (2013–present) Journal of Religion and Violence, Charlottesville: Philosophy Documentation Center.
* Kitts, Margo (ed.) (2018) Martyrdom, Self-Sacrifice, and Self-Immolation: Religious Perspectives on Suicide. New York: Oxford University Press.
* Pape, Robert (2005). Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. Random House. ISBN 9781588364609.
* Pedahzur, Ami and Weinberg, Leonard (eds.) (2004) Religious Fundamentalism and Political Extremism. New York: Routledge.
* Regina M. Schwartz (1998). The Curse of Cain: The Violent Legacy of Monotheism. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226742007.
* Selengut, C. (2003) Sacred Fury: Understanding Religious Violence. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira
* Stausberg, Michael (March 2021). Feldt, Laura; Valk, Ülo (eds.). "The Demise, Dissolution, and Elimination of Religions". Numen. 68 (2–3 - Special Issue: The Dissolution of Religions). Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers: 103–131\. doi:10.1163/15685276-12341617. hdl:11250/2977936. ISSN 1568-5276. LCCN 58046229.
* Steffen, Lloyd. (2007) Holy War, Just War: Exploring the Moral Meaning of Religious Violence. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Other

* Nelson-Pallmeyer, Jack (2003) Is Religion Killing Us? Harrisburg: Trinity Press International ISBN 1-56338-408-6
* Perry, Simon (2011). All Who Came Before. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock. ISBN 978-1-60899-659-9. Archived from the original on 21 May 2011. Retrieved 12 March 2011.
* Stern, Jessica. (2004) Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill. New York: Harper Perennial.

## External links

[edit]

* Myth of Religious conflict in Africa Archived 13 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine
* William T. Cavanaugh Resources from Jesus Radicals

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* The End of Faith
* The God Delusion
* The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
* Why I Am Not a Christian
* Why I Am Not a Muslim
* The Demon-Haunted World

* Books critical of Christianity
* Books critical of Islam
* Books critical of Judaism
* Books critical of Mormonism
* Books critical of Scientology

Movements|

* Agnosticism
* Antitheism
* Atheism

* Criticism

* Cārvāka
* New Atheism
* Nontheistic religions
* Parody religion

Related topics|

* Abuse
* Apostasy
* In Islam
* In Christianity
* Criticism of atheism
* Criticism of monotheism
* Sexuality
* Slavery
* Superstitions
* Muslim
* Jewish

* v
* t
* e

Religion

Religious groups and denominations

| Western
and Middle
Eastern|

| Abrahamic|

| Judaism|

* Orthodox

* Haredi
* Hasidic
* Modern
* Zionist

* Conservative
* Reform
* Karaite
* Haymanot
* Reconstructionist
* Renewal
* Humanistic
* list

|

Christianity|

* Catholicism
* Latin
* Eastern
* Eastern Orthodoxy
* Oriental Orthodoxy
* Nestorianism
* Ancient
* Assyrian
* Proto-Protestantism
* Hussites/Moravians
* Waldensians
* Protestantism
* Adventism
* Anabaptism
* Amish
* Brethren
* Hutterites
* Mennonites
* Schwenkfelder Church
* Anglicanism
* Baptists
* Calvinism
* Congregationalism
* Presbyterianism
* Reformed
* Charismatic Christianity
* Pentecostal
* Charismatic
* Neo-charismatic
* Evangelicalism
* Irvingism
* Lutheran
* Methodist
* Holiness
* Non-denominational
* Plymouth Brethren
* Quakerism
* Restorationism
* Esoteric
* The Christian Community
* Independent Catholicism
* Old Catholic
* Judaizers
* Nontrinitarianism
* Bible Students
* Associated Bible Students
* Free Bible Students
* Friends of Man
* Jehovah's Witnesses
* Kitawala
* Laymen's Home Missionary Movement
* Christadelphians
* Mormonism
* Oneness Pentecostalism
* Spiritual
* Swedenborgianism
* Tolstoyan
* Unitarianism
* list

Islam|

* Sunnism
* Ash'arism
* Maturidism
* Atharism
* Salafism
* Wahhabism
* Modernist Salafism
* Shi'ism
* Alawism
* Ali-Illahism
* Ismailism
* Twelver Shi'ism
* Zaydism
* Sufism
* Khawarij
* Ibadism
* Alevism
* Ishikism
* Kurdish Alevism
* Ahmadi
* Mahdavism
* Quranism
* Milah Abraham
* Non-denominational
* list

Other|

* Bábism
* Azalism
* Baháʼí Faith
* Druze
* Mandaeism
* Rastafari
* Samaritanism

Iranian|

| Zoroastrian|

* Blagovery
* Ilm-e-Khshnoom
* Mazdaznan
* Zurvanism

|

Kurdish|

* Shabakism
* Yarsanism

Other|

* Assianism/Uatsdin
* Roshani
* Manichaeism
* Chinese Manichaeism
* Yazdânism
* Yazidism

Eastern|

| East Asian|

| Chinese|

* Chinese folk religion
* Confucianism
* Luoism
* Nuo
* Salvationist
* Xiantiandao
* Yiguandao
* Falun Gong
* Taoism
* Folk Taoism
* Yao Taoism

|

Japonic|

* Shinto
* list
* Shugendō
* New religions
* Tenrikyo
* Ryukyuan

Korean|

* Korean shamanism
* Cheondoism
* Jeungsanism

Vietnamese|

* Vietnamese folk religion
* Đạo Mẫu
* Caodaism
* Hoahaoism
* Đạo Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương

Indian|

| Hinduism|

* Vaishnavism
* Krishnaism
* Sri Vaishnavism
* Brahma Sampradaya
* Nimbarka Sampradaya
* Pushtimarg
* Mahanubhava
* Ramanandi
* Warkari
* Swaminarayan
* Shaivism
* Shaiva Siddhanta
* Ganapatya
* Kashmiri
* Kapalika
* Kaumaram
* Lingayatism
* Nath
* Balinese
* Shaktism
* Smartism
* Śrauta
* Sant Mat
* Neo-Hinduism
* list

|

Buddhism|

* Theravada
* Mahayana
* Chan/Zen/Thiền
* Amidism
* Nichiren
* Vajrayana
* Tibetan
* Neo-Buddhism
* list

Other|

* Ayyavazhi
* Kalash
* Jainism
* Digambara
* Śvetāmbara
* Sarnaism
* Kirat Mundhum
* Vedda religions
* Ravidassia
* Sikhism
* Khalsa
* Sects

Ethnic|

| Altaic|

* Turko-Mongolic
* Burkhanism
* Tengrism
* Vattisen Yaly
* Tungusic
* Evenki
* Manchu

|

Austroasiatic|

* Sarnaism

Austronesian|

* Batak Parmalim
* Dayak
* Kaharingan
* Indonesian
* Aliran Kepercayaan
* Kejawèn
* Kapitayan
* Karo Pemena
* Malaysian
* Traditional Sabahan religions
* Philippine Dayawism
* Tagalog
* Polynesian
* Hawaiian
* Māori
* Sumbese Marapu
* Sundanese Wiwitan

Native
American|

* Abenaki
* Alaskan
* Anishinaabe
* Ojibwe
* Midewiwin
* Wabunowin
* Apache
* Blackfoot
* Californian
* Kuksu
* Miwok
* Ohlone
* Pomo
* Chilote
* Choctaw
* Crow
* Ghost Dance/Sun Dance
* Guarani
* Haida
* Ho-Chunk
* Iroquois
* Cherokee
* Four Mothers Society
* Keetoowah Society
* Longhouse
* Mohawk
* Muscogee Creek
* Seneca
* Wyandot
* Jivaroan
* Kwakwakaʼwakw
* Lenape
* Mapuche
* Mesoamerican
* Aztec
* Maya
* Purépecha
* Muisca
* Native American Church
* Navajo
* Nuu-chah-nulth
* Pawnee
* Pueblo
* Acoma Pueblo
* Hopi
* Zuni
* Sioux
* Lakota
* Wocekiye
* Tsimshian
* Ute
* Washat Dreamers
* Yaqui

Tai and Miao|

* Ahom
* Hmongism
* Mo
* Satsana Phi

Tibeto-Burmese|

* Bon
* Burmese
* Benzhuism
* Bimoism
* Bathouism
* Bongthingism
* Dongba
* Donyi-Polo
* Gurung
* Heraka
* Kiratism
* Qiang
* Sanamahism

Traditional
African|

| North African|

* Berber
* Guanche church

|

Sub-Saharan
African|

* Akamba
* Akan
* Baluba
* Bantu
* Kongo
* Zulu
* Bushongo
* Dinka
* Dogon
* Efik
* Fon and Ewe
* Ik
* Lotuko
* Lozi
* Lugbara
* Maasai
* Mbuti
* Odinala
* San
* Serer
* Tumbuka
* Urhobo
* Waaqeffanna
* Yoruba
* Ifá

* Diasporic:
* Candomblé
* Bantu
* Jejé
* Ketu
* Comfa
* Convince
* Espiritismo
* Kumina
* Obeah
* Palo
* Quimbanda
* Santería
* Tambor de Mina
* Trinidad Orisha
* Umbanda
* Vodou
* Voodoo
* Winti

Other ethnic|

* Aboriginal Australian
* Inuit
* Papuan
* Siberian

New
religious
movements|

| Syncretic|

* Blagovery
* Brahmoism
* Chinese
* Falun Gong
* Coconut Religion
* Japanese
* Meivazhi
* Modekngei
* New Acropolis
* New Age
* New Thought
* Rajneesh
* Rastafari
* Sant Mat
* Radha Soami
* Spiritualism
* Subud
* Tensegrity
* Thelema
* Theosophy
* Neo-Theosophy
* Agni Yoga and Roerichism
* Transcendental Meditation
* Unitarian Universalism
* White Brotherhood

|

Modern
paganism|

* African
* Godianism
* Armenian
* Baltic
* Dievturība
* Romuva
* Caucasian
* Abkhaz
* Circassian
* Celtic
* Druidry
* Germanic
* Hellenism (modern religion)
* Neoshamanism
* Ossetian
* Polytheistic reconstructionism
* Italo-Roman
* Kemetism
* Romanian
* Slavic
* Authentism
* Uralic
* Estonian
* Finnish
* Hungarian
* Mari
* Erzya
* Sámi
* Udmurt
* Wicca
* Zalmoxianism
* list

De novo|

* Anthroposophy
* The Christian Community
* Discordianism
* Eckankar
* Fourth Way
* Goddess
* Jediism
* Satanism
* Scientology
* UFO religion
* Raëlism

Historical religions

* Prehistoric
* Paleolithic
* Ainu
* Armenian
* Baltic
* Latvian
* Lithuanian
* Old Prussian
* Basque
* Celtic
* Druidism
* Irish
* Cook Islands
* Dravidian
* Egyptian
* Atenism
* Etruscan
* Finnish
* Fuegian
* Selkʼnam
* Georgian
* Germanic
* Anglo-Saxon
* Continental
* Frankish
* Norse
* Greek
* Gnosticism
* Greco-Buddhism
* Hermeticism
* Mysteries
* Orphism
* Guanche
* Harappan
* Hittite
* Hungarian
* Hurrian
* Illinois
* Inca
* Jamaican Maroon
* Manichaeism
* Mazdakism
* Melanesian
* Mesopotamian
* Babylonian
* Sumerian
* Micronesian
* Nauruan indigenous religion
* Olmec
* Paleo-Balkan
* Albanian
* Dacian
* Illyrian
* Thracian
* Proto-Indo-Iranian
* Iranian
* Vedic
* Ancestral Pueblo
* Pueblo II
* Pueblo III
* Pueblo IV
* Rapa Nui
* Roman
* Cult of Magna Mater
* Gallo-Roman
* Imperial cult
* Mithraism
* Mysteries of Isis
* Natale di Roma
* Semitic
* Arabian
* Canaanite
* Yahwism
* Punic
* Scythian
* Slavic
* Somali
* Tongan
* Turkic
* Tengrism
* Urartu
* Vainakh
* Zapotec

Topics

| Aspects|

* Apostasy / Disaffiliation
* Behaviour
* Beliefs
* Call to prayer
* Laicism / Laity
* Covenant
* Conversion
* Deities
* Denomination
* Entheogens
* Faith
* God
* Goddess
* Meditation
* Monasticism
* Monk
* Novice
* Nun
* Mysticism
* Mythology
* Ordination
* Orthodoxy
* Orthopraxy
* Paganism
* Prayer
* Prophecy
* Religious experience
* Ritual
* Liturgy
* Purification
* Sacrifice
* Sacred space
* Bodies of water
* Groves
* Mountains
* Trees
* Soul
* Spirituality
* Supernatural
* Symbols
* Text
* Truth
* Water
* Worship
* Astral
* Fire
* Nature
* Place

|

Theism|

* Animism
* Deism
* Dualism
* Henotheism
* Monotheism
* Nontheism
* Pandeism
* Panentheism
* Pantheism
* Polytheism
* Transtheism

Religious
studies|

* Anthropology
* Cognitive science
* Comparative
* Demographics
* Ethnic
* Folk
* Indigenous
* Major
* World
* Evolutionary origin of religion
* Evolutionary psychology
* History
* Neurotheology
* Philosophy
* Psychology
* Sociology
* Soteriology
* Salvation
* Theology
* Theories about religion
* Women

Religion
and society

* Agriculture
* Business
* Clericalism / Clergy
* Monasticism
* Ordination
* Priest
* Conversion
* Assimilation
* Missionary
* Proselytism
* Disability
* Education
* Fanaticism
* Freedom
* Pluralism
* Syncretism
* Toleration
* Universalism
* Fundamentalism
* Growth
* Gender
* Happiness
* LGBTQ people
* Homosexuality
* Intersex people
* Transgender people
* Minorities
* National church
* National religiosity levels
* Politics
* Populations
* Religiocentrism
* Schism
* School
* Science
* Sexuality
* State
* Suicide
* Theocracy
* Vegetarianism
* Video games
* Violence
* Persecution
* Terrorism
* War
* Sectarian
* Wealth

Secularism
and irreligion

* Agnosticism
* Antireligion
* Atheism
* Criticism
* Deconstruction
* Objectivism
* Secular humanism
* Secular religion
* Secular theology
* Secularization
* Separation of church and state
* Unaffiliated

Overviews
and lists

* Abrahamic prophets
* Deification
* Deities
* Founders
* Index
* Mass gatherings
* Names of God
* New religious movements
* Organizations
* Outline
* Religions and spiritual traditions
* Scholars
* Timeline

Religion by country

| Africa|

* Algeria
* Angola
* Benin
* Botswana
* Burkina Faso
* Burundi
* Cameroon
* Cape Verde
* Central African Republic
* Chad
* Comoros
* Democratic Republic of the Congo
* Republic of the Congo
* Djibouti
* Egypt
* Equatorial Guinea
* Eritrea
* Eswatini
* Ethiopia
* Gabon
* Gambia
* Ghana
* Guinea
* Guinea-Bissau
* Ivory Coast
* Kenya
* Lesotho
* Liberia
* Libya
* Madagascar
* Malawi
* Mali
* Mauritania
* Mauritius
* Morocco
* Mozambique
* Namibia
* Niger
* Nigeria
* Rwanda
* São Tomé and Príncipe
* Senegal
* Seychelles
* Sierra Leone
* Somalia
* South Africa
* South Sudan
* Sudan
* Tanzania
* Togo
* Tunisia
* Uganda
* Zambia
* Zimbabwe

|

Asia|

* Afghanistan
* Armenia
* Azerbaijan
* Bahrain
* Bangladesh
* Bhutan
* Brunei
* Cambodia
* China
* Cyprus
* Georgia
* Hong Kong
* India
* Indonesia
* Iran
* Iraq
* Israel
* Japan
* Jordan
* Kazakhstan
* Korea
* North Korea
* South Korea
* Kuwait
* Kyrgyzstan
* Laos
* Lebanon
* Macau
* Malaysia
* Maldives
* Mongolia
* Myanmar
* Nepal
* Oman
* Pakistan
* Palestine
* Philippines
* Qatar
* Saudi Arabia
* Singapore
* Sri Lanka
* Syria
* Taiwan
* Tajikistan
* Thailand
* Timor-Leste
* Turkey
* Turkmenistan
* United Arab Emirates
* Uzbekistan
* Vietnam
* Yemen

Europe|

* Albania
* Andorra
* Austria
* Belarus
* Belgium
* Bosnia and Herzegovina
* Bulgaria
* Croatia
* Czechia
* Denmark
* Estonia
* Finland
* France
* Germany
* Greece
* Hungary
* Iceland
* Ireland
* Italy
* Kosovo
* Latvia
* Liechtenstein
* Lithuania
* Luxembourg
* Malta
* Moldova
* Monaco
* Montenegro
* Netherlands
* North Macedonia
* Norway
* Poland
* Portugal
* Romania
* Russia
* San Marino
* Serbia
* Slovakia
* Slovenia
* Spain
* Sweden
* Switzerland
* Ukraine
* United Kingdom
* England
* Northern Ireland
* Scotland
* Wales

North America|

* Antigua and Barbuda
* Bahamas
* Barbados
* Belize
* Canada
* Costa Rica
* Cuba
* Dominica
* Dominican Republic
* El Salvador
* Grenada
* Guatemala
* Haiti
* Honduras
* Jamaica
* Mexico
* Nicaragua
* Panama
* Saint Kitts and Nevis
* Saint Lucia
* Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
* Trinidad and Tobago
* United States

Oceania|

* Australia
* Fiji
* Kiribati
* Marshall Islands
* Micronesia
* Nauru
* New Zealand
* Palau
* Papua New Guinea
* Samoa
* Solomon Islands
* Tonga
* Tuvalu
* Vanuatu

South America|

* Argentina
* Bolivia
* Brazil
* Chile
* Colombia
* Ecuador
* Guyana
* Paraguay
* Peru
* Suriname
* Uruguay
* Venezuela

* Category
* Portal

* v
* t
* e

Religious persecution and discrimination

By group|

* Persecution of non-believers
* Atheism
* Blasphemy law
* Religious censorship
* In Islam
* Apostasy
* Religious police
* Jizya
* Religious persecution
* In China
* Exclusivism
* Baháʼí Faith
* Buddhism
* Christianity
* Persecution
* Catholicism
* Eastern Orthodoxy
* Coptic Christianity
* Jehovah's Witnesses
* LDS or Mormon
* Protestantism
* Tewahedo Orthodoxy
* post–Cold War era
* Falun Gong
* Hinduism
* Persecution
* Untouchability
* Islam
* Persecution
* Ahmadiyya
* Shi'ism
* Sufism
* Sunnism
* minority Muslim
* Judaism
* Persecution
* Neopaganism
* Rastafari
* Serers
* Sikhism
* Yazidism
* Zoroastrianism

Methods|

* Censorship
* Blasphemy law
* Blood libel
* Communal violence
* Cultural genocide
* Deprogramming
* Desecration
* Domicide
* Discrimination
* Ethnic cleansing
* Ethnic conflict
* Extrajudicial killing
* Extrajudicial punishment
* Exclusivism
* Forced conversion
* Forced displacement
* Hate crime
* Iconoclasm
* Intolerance
* Pogrom
* Police
* Political violence
* Population cleansing
* Population transfer
* Sectarian violence
* Social cleansing
* Segregation
* State atheism
* State religion
* Terrorism
* Violence
* War

Events|

* Golden calf massacre (c.1250 BC)
* Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire (64–313)
* Persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire (c. 324–c. 491)
* Decline of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent (c.550–c. 1200)
* Yellow Turban Rebellion (c.184–c. 205)
* Battle of Tours (732)
* Rhineland massacres (1096)
* Jerusalem massacre (1099)
* Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent (643–1526)
* Inquisition (1184–1908)
* Massacre at Ayyadieh (1191)
* Northern Crusades (12th–16th cent.)
* Crusades against Christians (13th–15th cent.)
* Forced conversions of Muslims in Spain (1500–1526)
* European wars of religion (1522–1712)
* Ottoman–Habsburg wars (1526–1791)
* Goa Inquisition (1561–1812)
* French Wars of Religion (1562–1598)
* Expulsion of the Moriscos (1609–1614)
* Test Acts (1673–1829)
* Persecution of Muslims during the Ottoman contraction (1683–1922)
* Christianization of the Sámi people (1700s)
* French Revolutionary dechristianisation (1789–1801)
* Utah War (1857–1858)
* 1860 Mount Lebanon civil war (1860)
* Circassian genocide (1864)
* Dungan Revolt (1862–1877)
* Adana massacre (1909)
* Massacres of Albanians in the Balkan Wars (1912–1913)
* Greek genocide (1913–1922)
* Pontic Greek genocide
* Assyrian genocide (1914–1924)
* Armenian genocide (1915–1923)
* Persecution of Christians in the Eastern Bloc (1917–1990)
* Soviet persecution (1922–1991)
* 1917–1921
* 1921–1928
* 1928–1941
* 1958–1964
* 1970–1987
* legislation
* Šahovići massacre (1924)
* White Terror (Spain) (1936–1975)
* Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses (1933)
* The Holocaust (1939–1945)
* Genocide of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia (1941–1945)
* Communist Polish persecution (1945–1989)
* Communist Romanian persecution (1945–1989)
* Noakhali riots (1946)
* Direct Action Day (1946)
* 1946 Bihar riots (1946)
* Rawalpindi massacres (1947)
* Persecution of Hindus in Pakistan (1947–ongoing)
* Violence against Muslims in India (1947–ongoing)
* Violence against Hindus in independent India (1947–ongoing)
* 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight (1948)
* Jewish exodus from the Muslim world (1948–1980)
* Antireligious campaigns in China (1949–ongoing)
* Persecution of Tibetans (1950–ongoing)
* Exodus of Turks from Bulgaria (1950)
* Religious violence in Nigeria (1953–ongoing)
* Istanbul pogrom (1955)
* Buddhist crisis (1963)
* Huế Phật Đản shootings (1963)
* Thích Quảng Đức (1963)
* Xá Lợi Pagoda raids (1963)
* Cultural Revolution (1966–1976)
* Four Olds (1966)
* Famen Temple (1966)
* Bangladesh genocide (1971)
* Persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh (1971–ongoing)
* Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990)
* Cambodian genocide (1975–1979)
* 1984 anti-Sikh riots (1984)
* Revival Process (1984–1989)
* 1989 expulsion of Turks from Bulgaria (1989)
* Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus (1990)
* Yugoslav Wars (1991–2001)
* Ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian War (1992–1996)
* Bosnian genocide (1995)
* War crimes in the Kosovo War (1999)
* Walisongo school massacre (2000)
* Kosheh massacres (2000)
* September 11 attacks (2001)
* 2002 Gujarat riots (2002)
* South Thailand insurgency (2004–ongoing)
* Boko Haram insurgency (2009–ongoing)
* Maspero demonstrations (2011)
* Attacks by Islamic extremists in Bangladesh (2013–2016)
* Yazidi genocide (2014–2017)
* Genocide of Christians by ISIL (2014–ongoing)
* Iraqi Turkmen genocide (2014–2017)
* Persecution of Uyghurs in China (2014–ongoing)
* Rohingya genocide (2016–ongoing)
* Christchurch mosque shootings (2019)
* 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings (2019)
* 2020 Delhi riots (2020)
* 2024 Istanbul church shooting
* Crocus City Hall attack (2024)

Religion

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