The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #149910   Message #3491937
Posted By: Steve Shaw
18-Mar-13 - 08:11 PM
Thread Name: BS: Pope Francis
Subject: RE: BS: Pope Francis
Well I don't deny the dangers of fundamentalism (one of which is that is sometimes wraps itself in warm fuzzy imagery), and there is certainly a debate to be had with regard to the extent to which certain rabid leaders have invoked the almighty in furtherance of their cause (interesting, actually, how the people who do that are nearly always on the "wrong" side...). But it's a bit of a stretch to extrapolate from that to the notion that whole wars are fought "in the name of religion". God must seem quite a long way off when you're cowering in a stinking trench, crawling with lice and terrified of the next big bang, or when you've just blown a few dozen civilians to kingdom come with your smart bomb. The blokes who call wars with their fine speeches and rhetoric and   invocations of God are not the blokes who end up getting shot at in battle on the whole, though their inevitable sticky ends are not always unwelcome.