@
Mathers That is a false premise I am afraid. Although most wars are essentially land, wealth or ethnic disputes, there have been many wars, tyrannies and oppression with religious motives:
- The suppression of early Christians by the Romans (until the latter converted to the faith);
- The so-called Holy Crusades of Mediaeval times (a series of Christian attempts to drive Islam from the supposedly "Holy" land). Many of the Crusaders were surprised to find the Muslim society of the time was far more learned, civilised and comfortable than their brutal, crude North-West European, Church of Rome led, own.
- The Church of Rome: centuries of anti-learning plus heavy oppression of women and children (The Inquisition was part of the drive against questioning Church dogma.)
- Colonists from 18-19C Europe, whose "missionaries" aimed to destroy indigenous beliefs and replace them with some form of Christianity.
- Modern para-Christian cults whose primary aim is domestic coercion and control - inspiring novels exploring religious bigotry, like
The Handmaid's Tale (hard-line mysogyny in a dictatorship) and
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit (domestic cruelty to children).
- The fighting between the Sikhs, Hindhi and Muslims in India.
- The un-Islamic misogyny, selfishness and ignorance of the Taliban, and the even worse gangs like ISIS and Bokul Harun.
- The Second World War: WW1 was political and territorial but WW2 was to stop a regime that was not only land-grabbing but intended to wipe out the Jewish religion and culture - and the Jews themselves - along with the Roma, homosexuals and the mentally-ill.
- The USSR: trying to stamp out religion generally. (Stalin was also viciously anti-Semitic).
- Misguided but ultimately cruel policies by the mid-20C Canadian, Australian and Swiss governments to "assimilate" indigenous people (or in Switzerland, the Roma) by kidnapping the children and fostering them to "approved" families. Britain had a similar policy intended to give children living in poverty a "better life" in Australia and Canada. The link was that the established churches, both Catholic and Protestant, plus in the UK the Barnados charitym supporting the schemes by using their orphanages.
- The dreadful acts of the Catholic and to a lesser extent Protestant Churches in Ireland, mainly Eire but Ulster too; leading to the "Magdalen Laundries" slave-labour establishments, and deeply misogynist social mores generally.
- The People's Republic of China's aim to destroy the Uyghur religion and culture (most of them are Muslim)
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The link?
All based on shallow-minded fear, ignorance, religious intolerance, greed, hypocrisy, power-lust and cowardice; all very human failings hidden behind religious or anti-religious dogma.
Most of the perpetrators, and certainly at top level, have always been men, but not exclusively. For example, the Magdalen Laundries and the Irish "mother and baby" homes established to deal with illegitimacy and poverty were run by women - oh-so-holy but extraordinarily callous nuns with more Christianity in their wimples than in their hearts and minds.
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As for Utopia, as dreamt by the early-20C philosophers, whether religious or not, that will never happen.
There is no more intrinsic harm in agnosticism or atheism, than in religion. (Any, as Christianity has never been the only fruit, and the world is NOT divided into Christianity and atheism.... Though some SW users seem to think so!)
The fault lies with fallible humans whether there are any gods or none: humans using their beliefs
for, doubting or anti gods, to excuse their own, shallow, home or national selfishness.
