If religion disappeared today, would the world's nations be able to come to some sort of truce, if not peace?

There’s always something to fight about. It’s just that few excuses are as silly as religion.

No, then it would just be race. Or culture. Or money. Or oil.

Well it certainly would be a step in the right direction though humans are very adept at finding things to fight about.

No. It’s not like religion is the only reason for disagreement and wars.

Oh we would just find another cause to kill each other over religion is just the handy one for now.

Most wars are about power and control. Religion is merely a handy way to choose sides.

It may help a little bit, but religion is just one tool in the tool box of people hungry for power.

No. There will still be fighting over resources (in fact, I fully expect fighting to get worse over the coming century as essential resources dwindle).

Then ISIS would find another reason for their existence?

The most serious problems actually stem from demographics:

Let’s just look at the share of population 24 years or younger:
Syria 53% Egypt 50% Saudi Arabia 47% Yemen 63% Oman 50% Iraq 57% Iran 43% Jordan 56% Somalia 63% Sudan 61%

versus: US 33% Canada 29% Netherlands 30% Germany 24% France 31% UK 30% China 32% Japan 23%

Or: North Korea 38% vs South Korea 28%

Guess where we can expect trouble? When you have a bunch of young kids on your hands with little or no perspective to a good job, then guess again what these young men are going to do around their 18th birthday.

Now, one thing religion has done is fueling this population epidemic and if that could stop, maybe ten or twenty years down the line there is hope. Until then, brace for misery.

The biggest cause of war is tribalism. Religion is just a convenient tribal marker. The world is getting smaller and tribal distinctions are becoming less important. When you can communicate instantly over the Web with people half a world away, local cultural distinctions lose significance. I envision two diametrically opposite final scenarios. The optimistic one has us finally getting along peacefully. The pessimistic one has us running out of resources and descending into a Mad Max dystopia.

Communism was one of the most vehement anti-religious systems around. They were just plain power hungry. And Putin is basically trying to restore the parameters of the former USSR with as much of a land grab as he can get away with.

I’ve yet to hear any accusations leveled against him for being too much in thrall to any religious ideology at all.

And just go back in history a while. Napoleon was basically a giant megalomaniac whether he ever tried to hide behind religious idelogy or not. He just embarked upon one giant land grab.

Hitler was not following a religious ideology (altho I’m sure he appreciated the church groups which backed him).

Man’s inhumanity to man is quite pervasive and has no need of religious motivation, altho many use it as a conveniet excuse.

How do you argue with someone who declares that their most execrable acts (such as the beheading of children) are being done at the behest of God?

Instead of the familiar “the devil made me do it” now it’s “God told me to do it”

Religion does make the handiest scapegoat, doesn’t it!

History is abundant enough with numerous examples of unscrupulous conquerers with nary a trace of religios ideology, so if it were eliminated they would still abound.

No, we’d simply find something else to kill each other and ourselves about. It’s a skill we’ve been honing since Day One.

A few years ago Steven Pinker wrote the book The Better Angels of Our Nature, in which he argues that violence is declining, at least among industrial nations, and that we are in general becoming nicer. At over 700 pages, I confess that it was too much for me, but I read portions from a book in the library. The book is full of statistics but not that difficult to read and is fairly well written. Here is a TED talk Pinker gave on the book.

There has not been a war between major powers since WW II, which is an historically unprecedented length of time. In the last 400 years, nations have become more democratic, slavery has been mostly eliminated, women have been given the right to vote and civil rights have increased.

The industrial nations have also become more secular. I see two reasons for this. One is that science has largely nudged out religion as a way of explaining the world. The other is that the moral view presented by the Abrahamic religions is hopelessly outdated. They accept slavery, treat women as second class citizens, advocate corporal punishment of children and think that homosexuality is an abomination.

It is fashionable to poke fun of the ideals of the Enlightenment, but I think that in addition to the associated technological changes, there has been a major change in the way we think. Rationality has not yet completely replaced bigotry and superstition, but I think that is the direction we are heading, and in such an environment war no longer makes sense. That is the basis of my optimistic scenario which I previously mentioned.

It would certainly make the middle east peace process one hell of a lot easier.

There are two reasons for war and religion is not one of them. The first is that an elite always profit from war. The second is that it is a partial solution to unemployed youth: employment in industries providing materials for war and employment as soldiers. Religion and nationalism are merely means to recruit and to give the public a justification for a government funneling its resources to the barons of industry.

@Bill1939
So you are saying that the crusades, al qaeda, the taliban and isis are not religiously motivated?

No. Eradicating religion wouldn’t solve a thing.

@ragingloli I have my doubts about that. I think land borders and cultural differences would still prevail as a reason to fight.

@ragingloli
The crusades were to a large extent a continuation of a longer war with the Islamic nations. The first crusade was aimed at reconquering land occupied by the Islamic rulers that conquered Jerusalem and large parts of Southern Europe in the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries.

These were all a consequence of the fall of the Roman empire and the power vacuum it left behind.

Of course religion played a role, but one could argue that Islam is the consequence of the power vacuum that allowed Mohammed to rise rather than his motivation.

In general, I would content that religion are a consequence of man’s power struggles than the reason behind it. Think of why there is an Anglican church. Why did the Germans and the Dutch want their own religion? To be independent of Rome and its taxations surely had to do with it.

@ragingloli, I am “saying that the crusades, al qaeda, the taliban and isis are not religiously motivated.” Religion is used to motivate fighters, but is not the reason for the fighting. Power and the wealth that conquering others generates are the reasons.

No

What do you think keeps the world from all out chaos? There will be no truce and no utopia, and certainly no peace.

@Hypocrisy_Central “What do you think keeps the world from all out chaos? ”

Certainly not religion.

^ You can believe how you want.

Anyone taking an honest look at the would can see that religion has not made the world peaceful or orderly, though I’m certain you’ll never allow yourself to take that honest look.

@Darth_Algar Anyone taking an honest look at the would can see that religion has not made the world peaceful or orderly, though I’m certain you’ll never allow yourself to take that honest look.
You have got your blinders on and I am in no mood to throw rocks against a brick wall believing I will make a dent. I never said religion has made the world more peaceful; some religions have made the world less peaceful. Overall religion has kept the word from utter chaos, take an honest look yourself and see if it were not for that the whole world might resemble the Vikings or the Klingon Empire. As I say, you would believe the moment everyone forgets about God, they will all sit around with sitars, smoking herb, and singing kumbaya while holding hands, go ahead and believe that or anything else you want. My eyes are clear and my sight far….believe it is not, but that don’t count to a hill of beans towards truth.

“As I say, you would believe the moment everyone forgets about God, they will all sit around with sitars, smoking herb, and singing kumbaya while holding hands, go ahead and believe that or anything else you want.”

Quite the contrary: I believe that the world is a violent place, that we are by our nature violent and always will be and that no amount of religion or lack there of will change that.

Edit: As an aside it’s funny that you believe that if not for religion the the world would be chaos like Vikings. Vikings had religion. Some Vikings were even Christian.

The motives driving the Viking expansion are a topic of much debate in Nordic history. One common theory posits that Charlemagne ‘used force and terror to Christianise all pagans’, leading to baptism, conversion or death, and as a result Vikings and other pagans wanted revenge.

Apparently Klingons have religion.

Klingons have the best religion.
The first Klingons killed their own gods.
And they yearn for an honourable death on the battlefield, to enter their version of Heaven, Sto’Vo’Kor.
In the other hand, those who die in dishonour, like cowards, backstabbers, liars and those who die of old age, are sent to their version of Hell, Gre’thor.

Which of course is taken almost straight from the Viking religious beliefs about Valhalla and Niflheim/Hel.

No, man is warlike regardless of lack of religion or not. Just because people are atheist doesn’t mean that they get along. Some misuse religion, but every fight doesn’t involve religion.

There are peaceful religious people in the world, some even abstain from war. Man can’t straighten out the problems in the world on his own. Jer 10:23.

Jeremiah 10:23 shows that people can not solve the world’s problems. Not all wars are fought for religious purposes and not all atheists are peaceful people. Only religions like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Amish and Quakers don’t engage in war.