Religion: Competition, Conflict and Influence

disagreement. With everyone trying to promote themselves in the eyes of God, or achieve eternal salvation spirituality is no longer about humanity’s deliverance. The individual believes that as long as he serves the word of God he is justified in benefiting himself. Humans have, in a way, made religion into a competition, and with competition comes conflict. Religion’s place in causing war doesn’t lie solely in the fact it has essentially become a glorified competition, it is also caused by the incredibly strong influence it has over society. It plays a critical role in the lives of millions of people, and thus becomes deeply personal for the individual. There are several reasons for this. Theology falls under the category of social

The result is that when religions come into contact, rather than trying to accept each other’s differences, one group tries to force their beliefs on the others. This forced conversion comes in the form of kidnappings, rapes, and killings. An ironic fact coming from groups who claim to promote peace. This forced conversion is understandably met with resistance resulting in even more brutality. Forced conversion has always been a problem. Christianity has spread through violence dating back to fourth century Rome. (Kwon, 2014) Patricia Limerick describes the effect of one such Christian interaction in her essay “Haunted America.” Europeans did not come to kill the natives, rather violence ensued because the natives refused to convert to the European religion and way of life. This meant the Europeans saw them as wrong and savages. By trying to modernize Native Americans missionaries created divisions not only between Europeans and Natives, but also between natives as communities were split between those who agreed to convert and those who defended their ways; creating even more conflict. (Starkey, 1998) It is not only Christianity that has forced people to convert faiths. For example, written in the texts of the Quran are the words, “But whoever turns away from the Quran, he will have a hard life, and We will raise him up blind on the Day of Judgment.” (Quran, 20:124) These are words, direct from a text that people worship, that are promoting violence upon non-followers of Islam. Just as forced conversion isn’t just a problem with Christianity, it is not a problem of the past. People often think that we have become a more accepting society, and in some ways that is true, but in many more it is not. Take, for example, the Christians in Egypt, Nigeria and Indonesia and