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Religious people don't fight.
PEOPLE fight.
It seems to be a natural state of affairs that people fight. According to the _Canadian Army Journal_, in the years since 3,600 BC, the world has only known 292 years of peace. Now I don't know how this journal calculated this figure, but it's a staggering thought.
Of course the anti-religious love to say that religious people fight. They point to Northern Ireland and "Catholic vs. Protestant." They don't bother to mention that it's not just Catholic vs. Protestant, but Catholics who want independence and Protestants who want to remain tied with England. It's as much a political issue as a religious one, but you wouldn't know that by listening to NPR.

Is the Arab-Israeli conflict a religious one or a political one? Perhaps it's a bit of both, but I have to think it has a lot to do with the Arab feeling that Israel was foisted upon them by meddling Westerners and Israeli feelings that they've been attacked a zillion times. Katusha rockets aren't exactly a religious weapon.
Was World War II a religious war? I don't think so. Was World War I? Not hardly. Vietnam, Gulf War, Korea? Nope. How about the Civil War? No, if people had listened to the largely Christian abolitionist movement, it might have been avoided.
Despite what anti-religious bigots say, religious people, truly religious people, tend to end conflict rather than creating it. You ever heard of Martin Luther King? He created conflict in order to end a worse conflict? Gandhi? Desmond Tutu? Wasn't William Wilberforce an atheist? No, I guess not.
Of course the bigots will continue to talk about people "fighting in the name of religion," as if that were different from fighting in the name of communism, greed, tribal allegience, or anything else. All the religious folk can do, I suppose, is turn the other cheek.

Learn more about this author, Mark Browning.
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