War

Religion: Blessing or Curse

Jihad, holy war, and infidel are words that are becoming more and more familiar to the American public due to the current involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Enemy combatants believe they are fighting American soldiers in the name of Jihad. This, however, is not the first instance of such an event; for centuries people have fought viciously in wars because they believed that God would reward them. Is religion not supposed to preach peace and love for one's neighbor? It is ironic that more people have been killed in the name of one god or another than for any other reason throughout history. Despite this, religion does deserve credit for not only unifying early peoples, but also for showing that early man had a more developed conscious than was originally thought. Religion also gave a basis for the development of society and civilization by providing rules and guidelines to live by. Even though religion has been the cause, however indirectly, of many atrocities throughout humankind's history it has also been the source of great furthering for society.

The very first signs of religion were seen in early Neanderthal men. This group of primitive beings would bury their dead in simple graves with a few items that were thought to be essential in the "after-life". A belief in an afterlife displayed one's ability to organize thought and his or her ability to think about something beyond his or her place in the physical world. Most of the earliest religions were usually centered on the earth, the sun, and the surrounding planets as is seen with Egyptian, Greco-Roman, and Aztec mythologies. Furthermore, these religions shared polytheistic basis, meaning that the people involved believed in many gods. Three of the four modern religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, are monotheistic, meaning their adherents believe in one god.

One of the longest religious conflicts of recent times exists between the Palestinians and the Israelis over the control of Jerusalem, which is a city that is religiously important to both parties. This is due largely in part because the Jewish peoples were given that land in 1948 after World War II as an attempted apology from the Western World for the Holocaust, an attempted genocide which resulted in the killing of six million Jews. This, however, uprooted the Palestinian nation whose people felt that they were forced to move from their lands. They have since retaliated with forms of violent protest such as suicide bombings and kidnapping. Likewise, the Israelis have reacted with force, sending organized military forces into Palestinian territory.

At this time, the United States became involved supplying Israelis with weaponry. This was done because, at the time, it was seen as the best interest of America. This began the Arab/Islamic distrust and, eventually, an immense hatred of everything associated with America. This hatred led to the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the current involvement in Iraq. What makes the current war so tedious and time-consuming is the relentless determination of the enemy. "We have not broken the back of the insurgency. The insurgency is like a cell-phone system. You shut down one node, another somewhere else comes online to replace it," said a high-ranking American officer. These comments were made concerning the fighting in the city of Tall 'Afar that took place in fall of last year. The fighting in that country is tough and slow to progress, even after more that two and a half years of fighting. This is because American troops are facing an enemy who believes that Allah is on their side (Donnelly 35).

It must be noted that Judaism and Islam are not the only religions guilty of nearly constant warfare; Christianity is also at fault. The prime examples of Christian combat are the Crusades. They consisted of four wars in which nobles from Europe traveled to the Holy Land in an effort to reclaim Jerusalem, which was under Muslim control. These campaigns for the "Holy Land" were usually commissioned by the papacy. The papacy sent nobles and kings to the Middle East along with their vassals, which consisted of knights who had sworn allegiance to a particular king or noble. These kings would leave their responsibilities to subordinates and go to fight in the Middle East. This, however, led to tyrannical leaders and government corruption, along with economic problems due to the incompetence of the stewards in charge. This also strained relations between the West and the East and between Christian and Islamic peoples. These tensions are still seen very clearly in the world today (Mastnak 96).

The Crusades, which were publicized as an attempt to liberate the Holy Land, eventually became a way for the church to terrorize the city of Constantinople, the heart of the Byzantine Empire. This took place after the Great Schism that occurred in the Catholic Church after the fall of the Roman Empire. This division created a West and an East, the centers of which were Rome and Constantinople respectfully. Problems occurred when the Christians in Constantinople disagreed with the teachings of the then current pope in Rome and elected their own pope. The crusaders en route to their destination, which was Jerusalem, descended upon Constantinople sacking or pillaging the once proud city. This was a prime case of using religious reasons to promote an act of basic plunder and thievery; it was also an act of warfare not between different religions but between people of different sects of the same religion (Hindley 152-155).

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