Thursday, July 30, 2015

Wars Over Religious Differences

... don't seem much different from wars over anything else.

Continuing on with Churchill's A History of the English Speaking Peoples, I'm into the reign of Queen Elizabeth where the wars between England, France and Spain were indeed Protestant vs. Catholic. However, the level of violence doesn't seem any different from that seen during the Hundred Years War where everyone was Catholic. Dittos for the wars between the Romans and the Britons or the invasions of the Vikings. The intrigue and plotting and scheming is the same regardless of the putative reason for war.

Maybe humans are just aggressive, selfish creatures by nature.

4 comments:

Ilíon said...

no, No, NO! Simply everyone knows that, "To get good (*) people to do bad (*) things, it takes religion (*)"

(*) what ever that word means

K T Cat said...

I'm relatively new to reading history books for fun and am really a dilettante. Still, even my mild perusal of the subject is enough to point out the sheer idiocy of most of the things being taught in public schools.

Ilíon said...

You're not supposed to notice these things!

Ilíon said...

For instance: the "Religious Wars" that devastated and depopulated Germany in the 15th century were far more about the dynastic ambitions of the French monarchy than they were about “religion”.