The human being finds many reasons to confront each other for years and with the aim of systematically annihilating the opposing side. The wars caused by religious reasons, for example, as well as those caused by irrational ideologies or nationalisms, although they are not always the longest and bloody, they do tend to be, according to a study carried out by the sociologist Evan Luard in his War in International Society .
Because the ideas that articulate the war come from a reliable source of knowledge , indisputable, especially in the case of religious wars, because that source is nothing less than God.
My belief is better than yours and that point cannot be argued
Between 1559 and 1648 alone, rival religious coalitions battled for control of cities and states in at least 25 international wars and 26 civil wars. Protestants against Catholics, Christians against Muslim Turks, Shiite Muslims participating in four wars between Turkey and Persia. All defending their own indisputable truth .
Some advances in killing technology also played a role, but religious passion was the greatest spur to go ahead and annihilate every last soul who did not agree with one’s religious creed, as the historian of diplomacy has pointed out. Garret Mattingly when referring to conflicts such as the Thirty Years ‘War or the Eighty Years’ War:
When religious questions came to dominate politics, any negotiation with the enemy of a state seemed increasingly heresy and treason. The issues that divided Catholics and Protestants were no longer negotiable. Consequently (…) diplomatic contacts decreased.
The ideological fervor that comes from irrational sources (indisputable, that stumbles on the fallacy of authority, etc.) acts as a powerful accelerator of a military conflagration. The absolute truths coming from a divinity, however, did not avoid the deep cognitive dissonances of its proselytes: before the "you shall not kill" they happily killed. Other creeds simply considered little less than animals with divergent views, as Evan Luard points out with these examples:
The heinous bloodshed could be attributed to divine wrath. The Duke of Alba had the entire population of Naarden killed after his capture (1572), because he considered that it was a punishment from God for their obstinacy in resisting; as it happened later with Cromwell, who after allowing his troops to loot Drogheda and cause a terrible bloodbath, declared that it had been "a justified punishment from God." Thus, by a cruel paradox, those who fought in the name of their faith were often less likely to show humanity to their adversaries in war. And this is reflected in the tremendous loss of human life, due both to war and hunger or the destruction of crops that were produced in the areas most devastated by the religious conflicts of the time.
It should be emphasized, for the umpteenth time, that it is not only religion that leads people who aspire to do good to do horrible things . Religion is just a powerful excuse, almost always safe from criticism on pain I tell you that: "You are offending me." either "respect my religious beliefs" or "I’m going to report you for blasphemy." Some expressions that, by the way, are one of the few in the world that personally offends me.
More information | The Angels Within Us , by Steven Pinker