I do not think that any of your examples, nor any example I have ever looked at, really fits Scenario A. Perhaps the Partition of India or Greece/Turkey.* Religion almost never creates differences. Sometimes religion unifies people. The Greens and Blues, unified by religion, are able to stop fighting each other and attack the Reds. Perhaps this describes your first three examples. Maybe you should call these “wars of religion,” but they fit neither of your scenarios.
Scenario B is also rare. I would assign to it only the Thirty Years’ War. People rarely need cover.
Ireland is a race conflict, between the natives and the Scottish settlers. I think that this is a typical example. The core is a race conflict, but the names of the parties are religions so that people can change sides, if only a way that half-breeds can signify their allegiance.
Everyone knows that Israel is a settler conflict. If you think it is religious conflict, what is the religion of the Palestinians? The PLO was originally Christian and atheist. It would be odd to call it a religious conflict when the religion of one side changes (even just that of their leaders).
Yes, it takes information to decide, but the quite consistent pattern is that when I obtain information, I downgrade the religious hypothesis. Having such a pattern, I should change my prior.
* The ethnic cleansing between Greece and Turkey is interesting because it was largely done on the basis of religion, but in the name of race. After the partition, the new countries emphasized racial identity and a single language, but before there wasn’t much correlation between religion and, say, language.
maybe you should call these “wars of religion,” but they fit neither of your scenarios.
True.
Everyone knows that Israel is a settler conflict. If you think it is religious conflict, what is the religion of the Palestinians? The PLO was originally Christian and atheist. It would be odd to call it a religious conflict when the religion of one side changes (even just that of their leaders).
Good point.
the quite consistent pattern is that when I obtain information, I downgrade the religious hypothesis.
OK, I have noticed the same thing. But that hardly means the political motive is the main cause of all ostensibly religious conflicts (which is the claim to which I was originally responding).
Other ways in which religion could play a causal role in war include:
What if the doctrine of a religion is itself explicitly encouraging of violent approaches to conflict resolution?
What if the version of history promulgated by a religious community, perhaps encoded in its sacred text, casts the community as victims of perpetually untrustworthy outsiders?
What if the doctrine of a religion states that unbelievers cannot be expected to cooperate in Prisoners’ Dilemma-type situations?
If the Greens believed in a religion that featured the above characteristics (or some of them), surely that would be evidence in favor of the religious nature of the war?
I do not think that any of your examples, nor any example I have ever looked at, really fits Scenario A. Perhaps the Partition of India or Greece/Turkey.* Religion almost never creates differences. Sometimes religion unifies people. The Greens and Blues, unified by religion, are able to stop fighting each other and attack the Reds. Perhaps this describes your first three examples. Maybe you should call these “wars of religion,” but they fit neither of your scenarios.
Scenario B is also rare. I would assign to it only the Thirty Years’ War. People rarely need cover.
Ireland is a race conflict, between the natives and the Scottish settlers. I think that this is a typical example. The core is a race conflict, but the names of the parties are religions so that people can change sides, if only a way that half-breeds can signify their allegiance.
Everyone knows that Israel is a settler conflict. If you think it is religious conflict, what is the religion of the Palestinians? The PLO was originally Christian and atheist. It would be odd to call it a religious conflict when the religion of one side changes (even just that of their leaders).
Yes, it takes information to decide, but the quite consistent pattern is that when I obtain information, I downgrade the religious hypothesis. Having such a pattern, I should change my prior.
* The ethnic cleansing between Greece and Turkey is interesting because it was largely done on the basis of religion, but in the name of race. After the partition, the new countries emphasized racial identity and a single language, but before there wasn’t much correlation between religion and, say, language.
True.
Good point.
OK, I have noticed the same thing. But that hardly means the political motive is the main cause of all ostensibly religious conflicts (which is the claim to which I was originally responding).
Other ways in which religion could play a causal role in war include:
What if the doctrine of a religion is itself explicitly encouraging of violent approaches to conflict resolution?
What if the version of history promulgated by a religious community, perhaps encoded in its sacred text, casts the community as victims of perpetually untrustworthy outsiders?
What if the doctrine of a religion states that unbelievers cannot be expected to cooperate in Prisoners’ Dilemma-type situations?
If the Greens believed in a religion that featured the above characteristics (or some of them), surely that would be evidence in favor of the religious nature of the war?