Editing Religious war (section)

== Applicability of religion to war ==
{{See also|Definition of religion|War of succession#Applicability}}
Some commentators have questioned the applicability of religion to war, in part because the word "religion" itself is difficult to define, particularly posing challenges when one tries to apply it to non-Western cultures. Secondly, it has been argued that religion is difficult to isolate as a factor, and is often just one of many factors driving a war. For example, many armed conflicts may be simultaneously [[war of succession|wars of succession]] as well as wars of religion when two rival claimants to a throne also represent opposing religions.<ref name="Luard">{{Cite book |last1=Luard |first1=Evan |date=1992 |title=The Balance of Power|chapter=Succession |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-21927-8_6?noAccess=true |location=London |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |pages=149–150 |doi=10.1007/978-1-349-21927-8_6 |isbn=978-1-349-21929-2 |access-date=10 March 2022}}</ref> Examples include the [[War of the Three Henrys]] and the [[Succession of Henry IV of France]] during the [[French Wars of Religion]], the [[Hessian War]] and the [[War of the Jülich Succession]] during the Reformation in Germany, and the [[Jacobite risings]] (including the [[Williamite]]–Jacobite wars) during the [[Reformation]] in Great Britain and Ireland.
 
John Morreall and Tamara Sonn (2013) have argued that since there is no consensus on definitions of "religion" among scholars and no way to isolate "religion" from the rest of the more likely motivational dimensions (social, political, and economic); it is incorrect to label any violent event as "religious".<ref name="50 great">{{cite book|last1=Morreall|first1=John|last2=Sonn|first2=Tamara|title=50 Great Myths of Religion|date=2013|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|isbn=9780470673508|pages=39–44|chapter=Myth 8. Religion Causes Violence}}</ref>

Theologian [[William T. Cavanaugh]] in his ''Myth of Religious Violence'' (2009) argues that the very concept of "religion" is a modern Western concept that was invented recently in history. As such, he argues that the concept of "religious violence" or "religious wars" are incorrectly used to anachronistically label people and conflicts as participants in religious ideologies that never existed in the first place.<ref name="Cavanaugh" /> The concept of "religion" as an abstraction which entails distinct sets of beliefs or doctrines is a recently invented concept in the English language since such usage began with texts from the 17th century due to the splitting of Christendom during the Protestant Reformation and more prevalent colonization or globalization in the age of exploration which involved contact with numerous foreign and indigenous cultures with non-European languages.<ref name="Harrison Territories">{{cite book |last1=Harrison |first1=Peter |title=The Territories of Science and Religion |date=2015 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0226184487}}</ref> It was in the 17th century that the concept of "religion" received its modern shape despite the fact that the Bible, the Quran, and other ancient sacred texts did not have a concept of religion in the original languages and neither did the people or the cultures in which these sacred texts were written.<ref name=Nongbri>{{cite book |last1=Nongbri |first1=Brent |title=Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept |date=2013 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0300154160}}</ref> The modern word ''religion'' comes from the Latin word ''religio'' which, in the ancient and medieval world, was understood as an individual virtue of worship, never as doctrine, practice, or actual source of knowledge.<ref name="Harrison Territories" /> Cavanaugh argued that all wars that are classed as "religious" have secular (economic or political) ramifications.<ref name="Cavanaugh">{{cite book|last1=Cavanaugh|first1=William T.|title=The Myth of Religious Violence : Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict|date=2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-538504-5}}</ref> Similar opinions were expressed as early as the 1760s, during the [[Seven Years' War]], widely recognized to be "religious" in motivation, noting that the warring factions were not necessarily split along confessional lines as much as along secular interests.<ref name="p. 110"/>

There is no precise equivalent of "religion" in Hebrew, and there is no clear definition of jewishness, it could be defined by religion, roots of national origin and ethnic. Jewishness could have been multi-racial.<ref>Hershel Edelheit, Abraham J. Edelheit,  [https://www.questia.com/library/book/history-of-zionism-a-handbook-and-dictionary-by-abfaham-j-edelheit-hershel-edelheit.jsp History of Zionism: A Handbook and Dictionary] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110624015852/http://www.questia.com/library/book/history-of-zionism-a-handbook-and-dictionary-by-abfaham-j-edelheit-hershel-edelheit.jsp |date=24 June 2011 }}, p. 3, citing [[Solomon Zeitlin]], ''The Jews. Race, Nation, or Religion?'' ( Philadelphia: Dropsie College Press, 1936).</ref><ref>{{cite book |author1=Pluralism Project, Harvard University |title=Judaism - Introductory Profiles |date=2015 |publisher=Harvard University |page=2 |url=https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/files/rpl/files/judaism_pluralism_project_harvard_university_religious_literacy_project_harvard_divinity_school_march_24_2015.pdf?m=1660591091#:~:text=In%20the%20English%2Dspeaking%20Western,and%20practices%20associated%20with%20a |quote=In the English-speaking Western world, “Judaism” is often considered a “religion," but there are no equivalent words for “Judaism” or for “religion” in Hebrew; there are words for “faith,” “law,” or “custom” but not for “religion” if one thinks of the term as meaning solely the beliefs and practices associated with a relationship with God or a vision of transcendence.}}</ref> In the Quran, the Arabic word {{Transliteration|ar|deen}} is often translated as "religion" in modern translations, but up to the mid-17th century, translators expressed {{Transliteration|ar|deen}} as "law".<ref name=Nongbri />

It was in the 19th century that the terms "Buddhism", "Hinduism", "Taoism", and "Confucianism" first emerged.<ref name="Harrison Territories" /><ref name="Invention Japan">{{cite book |last1=Josephson |first1=Jason Ananda |title=The Invention of Religion in Japan |date=2012 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0226412344}}</ref> Throughout its long history, Japan had no concept of "religion" since there was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its meaning, but when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853 and forced the Japanese government to sign treaties demanding, among other things, freedom of religion, the country had to contend with this Western idea.<ref name="Invention Japan" /> According to the [[philologist]] [[Max Müller]], what is called ancient religion today, would have only been understood as "law" by the people in the ancient world.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Müller|first=Friedrich Max
| author-link= Max Müller
| page= 28
|url=https://archive.org/details/introductiontos04mlgoog/page/n44/mode/1up|title=Introduction to the Science of Religion: four lectures delivered at the Royal institution, with two essays, On false analogies, and The philosophy of mythology|date=1873|place=London | publisher= Longmans, Green, and co.}}</ref> In [[Sanskrit]] word [[dharma]], sometimes translated as "religion", also means law. Throughout the classical [[Indian subcontinent]], the [[Dharmaśāstra|study of law]] consisted of concepts such as [[Prāyaścitta|penance through piety]] and [[Ācāra|ceremonial as well as practical traditions]]. Medieval Japan at first had a similar union between "imperial law" and universal or "Buddha law", but these later became independent sources of power.<ref>[[Toshio Kuroda (Shinto professor)|Kuroda, Toshio]] and Jacqueline I. Stone, translator. {{cite web|url=http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/jjrs/pdf/477.pdf |title=The Imperial Law and the Buddhist Law |access-date=2010-05-28 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030323095019/http://www.nanzan-u.ac.jp/SHUBUNKEN/publications/jjrs/pdf/477.pdf |archive-date=23 March 2003 }}. ''Japanese Journal of Religious Studies'' 23.3-4 (1996)</ref><ref>Neil McMullin. ''Buddhism and the State in Sixteenth-Century Japan''. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1984.</ref>

According to McGarry & O'Leary (1995), it is evident that religion as one aspect of a people's [[cultural heritage]] may serve as a cultural marker or ideological rationalization for a conflict that has deeper ethnic and cultural differences. They argued this specifically in the case of [[The Troubles]] in Northern Ireland, often portrayed as a religious conflict of a Catholic vs. a Protestant faction, while the more fundamental cause of the conflict was supposedly ethnic or nationalistic rather than religious in nature.<ref name="McGarry J 1995">McGarry J, O'Leary B, 1995. ''Explaining Northern Ireland: Broken Images.'' Oxford, Blackwell</ref> Since the native Irish were mostly Catholic and the later British-sponsored immigrants were mainly Protestant, the terms become shorthand for the two cultures, but McGarry & O'Leary argued that it would be inaccurate to describe the conflict as a religious one.<ref name="McGarry J 1995"/>

In their 2015 review of violence and peacemaking in world religions, Irfan Omar and Michael Duffey stated: "This book does not ignore violence committed in the name of religion. Analyses of case studies of seeming religious violence often conclude that ethnic animosities strongly drive violence."<ref name="Omar">{{cite book|editor1-last=Omar|editor1-first=Irfan|editor2-last=Duffey|editor2-first=Michael|title=Peacemaking and the Challenge of Violence in World Religions|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|isbn=9781118953426|page=1|ref=Omar Peacemaking|chapter=Introduction|date=22 June 2015|quote=This book does not ignore violence committed in the name of religion. Analyses of case studies of seeming religious violence often conclude that ethnic animosities strongly drive violence.}}</ref>