Religion makes enemies instead of friends. That one word, “religion,” covers all the horizon of memory with visions of war, of outrage, of persecution, of tyranny, and death. That one word brings to the mind every instrument with which man has tortured man. In that one word are all the fagots and flames and dungeons of the past, and in that word is the infinite and eternal hell of the future.
– Robert Green Ingersoll, “The Damage Religion Causes”
Even as it reels from last week’s election returns, the atheist left continues to insist that George Bush has engaged the nation in a modern crusade because of his faith in the Christian God. They believe this in part because their godless relativism somehow does not prevent them from believing that Manichean evil exists in the form of Republican politicians, and partly because they subscribe to the theory that religion is the primary cause of the wars that have plagued human history.
And in this age of jihadist revival, it is easy to see why such a theory of martial causation would hold some appeal to the historically ignorant. The recent conflicts in the Sudan, Nigeria, East Timor, the Philippines, Kashmir and Chechnya certainly have a strong Islamic element, and the thought of an army of the West swooping down on the Middle East cannot help but conjure up images of Raymond, Godfrey and Bohemond before the walls of Jerusalem.
But much time has passed between the taking of Jerusalem in 1099 and the fall of Baghdad in 2003, and very little of it has been peaceful. Furthermore, Islam did not exist prior to the year 610, nor did Christianity prior to A.D. 33. And yet ancient documents such as the Chronicles of the Assyrian Kings are filled with descriptions of what certainly appear to be matters of martial concern. For example, the Black Obelisk of Shalmeneser III records some of the bloody-minded Assyrian king’s martial deeds:
In my 24th year, the lower Zab I crossed. The land of Khalimmur I passed through. To the land of Zimru I went down. Yan’su King of the Zimri from the face of my mighty weapons fled and to save his life ascended [the mountains]. The cities of ‘Sikhisatakh, Bit-Tamul, Bit-Sacci, Bit-Sedi, his strong cities, I captured. His fighting men I slew. His spoil I carried away. The cities I threw down, dug up, [and] with fire burned … The cities of Cua-cinda, Khazzanabi, Ermul, [and] Cin-ablila with the cities which were dependent on them I captured. Their fighting men I slew. Their spoil I carried away. The cities I threw down, dug up [and] burned with fire. An image of my Majesty in the country of Kharkhara I set up.
It is true that Shalmaneser gives much credit for his victories to his god, Assur, but not once does the son of Assur-nasir-pal claim that he is waging war in an attempt to perpetrate the worship of his god. For one thing, Shalmaneser does not seem inclined to leave many potential converts alive and one further notes that the statues erected to commemorate his victories are not of Assur, but of Shalmaneser himself.
To cite a more recent example, historians record that all of Europe anticipated that Charles VIII of France, upon coming into his own in 1491, (he had been subject to an 8-year regency upon inheriting the crown at 13), would launch a military campaign because that was what was expected of young, energetic kings with armies. And within three years, Charles had invaded Italy and laid the groundwork for 30 years of war on the Lombard plain.
But this is simply anecdotal evidence. A more systematic review of the 489 wars listed in the Wikipedia’s list of military conflicts, ranging from Julius Caesar’s Gallic Wars to the 1969 Football War between Honduras and El Salvador, shows that only 53 of these wars – 10.8 percent – can reasonably be described as having a religious nature, even if one counts each of the 10 Crusades separately. If there is a god responsible for this ever-present bloodshed, it is Mars, not Jehovah or Jesus Christ.
America does not fight religious wars – it never has, the jihadist aspect of the present conflict notwithstanding. As America’s martial involvement in the Middle East broadens in the next four years, disappointed Democrats can at least console themselves with the thought that God is not to blame.
