Quote:
Originally Posted by pylon
Has anyone ever wondered, how many lives would have been spared over the last 4000 years, has religion never existed?
It would have to be billions.
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I'm not actually convinced that this is true. Religion is only one of many group identifiers that expansionist leaders could use to justify war. It just happened to be the best suited, most effective one. I imagine that communities would still have supported the vast majority of "holy wars" if the justification was based on some other group identifier or to spread some other cultural or moral technology (like law, etc.).