Hitler's Argumentative Essay: Does Religion Cause War?

War has been present since the dawn of man. Human beings have fought with malicious intent over land, power, and resources. Religion, on the other hand, has not been around for quite as long as war has. Although it started out small, religious views have grown to influence incredible amounts of individuals and groups. Unfortunately, not every person or group believes in the same religion, and this is grounds for disagreement. Today, it is a common idea to spread through media that religion, the practices and beliefs of loving your neighbor and worshipping under a god, is a legitimate cause of war. This idea is not true, rather than a cause of war, religion is used by people as a scapegoat to explain conflicts between groups in “civilized” societies.

World War II involved actions of a major wartime figure, Hitler. Hitler was not a religious zealot and did not raise his fight from religion. Hitler’s “claim to fame” was the holocaust. The holocaust was a time of genocide for the Jewish populace. The mere mention of the Jewish populace is enough to brainwash many into believing it was a religious conflict, but this is a great misconception. “To lump all the blame on Hitler and his personal beliefs are all too easy and it ignores the real problems and the true route cause” (Humanisticus, Skeptic Ink). The fact of the matter is that Hitler’s hostility towards the Jews began way before his time. Hitler was born into this ideology of disliking the Jewish people much like a child of the south during the time of slavery is born into being prejudice towards African Americans. Hitler wasn’t the only one who received this hand-me-down idea of anti-Semitism, this is why it was so easy for him to build a following. Hitler built this following during a time of poverty and struggle for Germany, but the Jews at the time were not affected by this struggle like their fellow Germans. The Jews had enough money and resources to stay fairly comfortable, and that only aided Hitler’s rise to power. Hitler assembled his anti-Semitic followers and enlightened them to the fact that the Jewish people were comfortable in their time of strife, this only fueled the fire ultimately leading to the genocide of the Jewish population. Even though the information provided was a brief explanation, this clearly shows that Hitler’s religion had nothing to do with his killing of the Jews. He killed the Jews along with his new formed society because of the anti-Semitism implanted in their psyche (Humanisticus, Skeptic Ink) and to gain power for his weakened