Holy Wars

Does anybody ever think that their will be a global war between the different world religions and if so what do ya'll think the war would be like?

no.

Given past and present religious conflicts... it would probably be really really gory with lots of mutilated corpses on display as warnings and "ha ha, this is what you get for not being one of us!"es.

...global war? Nonsense. Isolated, regional conflict? Happens every day. Involves lots of nasty stuff. Essentially normal war, really, but with particularly motivated troops...

I seriously doubt it, because the two religions that are both big enough and militant enough (that's not quite the word I want) to start one — Christianity and Islam — are also both splintered into enough sects and versions that they aren't going to all agree on anything.

edited 29th Aug '11 2:34:12 PM by Madrugada

@: Nope, we've got more important things to kill people for. There's also the fact that the major powers in the world aren't that big on smiting infidels and non-believers.

Most purely religious wars tend to be highly local, between neighbours of opposing faiths. Sometimes the motive might be reclaiming significant locations (that one bit of land at the east coast of the Medditerranian pops to mind, what was it called again? Really important to some guys or something). Mostly, the recent trend in thinking of holy war pits the islamic world against the secular/christian west. That scenario usuallly rests on the idea that arabs/muslims are some sort of mindless barbarian horde with nothing but contempt against freedom and democracy. Not that Islam is a nice religion (not that I consider any religion all that nice once it gains enough followers), or that those countries have high standards of democracy and civil liberties, apart from a few radical imams, most of the people have no motive to try impose those laws on other countries.

[ed.] For another possible conflict, try Islam vs. Hinduism, though that conflict (long brewing) is less to do about any theological disputes.

edited 29th Aug '11 2:40:49 PM by JethroQWalrustitty

No.

The last religious war (arguably) among Western cultures was the 30 year's war, 500 years ago.

It's not gonna happen again very soon.

Global war? Hahaha. No.

Conflicts? Thats been happening since humans looked to the sky and someone else said "Hey loser the way I look at the sky is better" and beat him with a rock.

If one is ever fought, I'm gonna side with the Buddhists.

See you in your next life.

Pft, the Zoroastrians will come from no where with a Dark Horse Victory

Us Hindus will ref. :P

@OP No. Won't happen. Not at world scale. Religion is merely the cultural prism through which one sees God, so with globalization, its becoming less and less of an issue.

Holy Wars... damn good Megadeth song, one of the best off that album.

Oh wait, actual religious wars? I'll side with either the Norse deities or Kali.

Nope. Christianity has abandoned religious wars officially (though they still happen from time to time as Christian groups go at somewhere else) and Islam has a serious credibility issue doing one since no real enemy exists it can declare a religion vs religion war on.

Religion will still be used as an excuse for war, but the days of Holy Wars ended many centuries ago with the last Crusade.

Whats your definition of a "Religious war"? If you mean full scale battles between two different religions, no. If you mean one worldview persecuting another, well, that is happening right now all over the world, and probably wont ever stop.

@OP: No, not if you mean all all Muslims and all Christians allied against each other, like the Axis and Allies.

The closest we've come are the Rashidun jihads, when all Muslims were at war with the Eastern Church, and the First Crusade, when the Eastern Emperor and Pope were allied against all Sunnis. It's hard to give credence to another such conflict, as Muslims have no Caliph and we have no Caesar to render unto.

Won't happen. Christians aren't organised enough to dominate their nations thinking enough to call for violent religious action across one country, let alone several (western nations where the religion dominates are generally fiercely secular and/or extremely moderate) while Islams base in the middle east is riven with internal divisions and while radicals are certainly widespread, the moderates still outweigh them enough to ensure you're never going to get a united religious front opposing all non-Muslims. And besides, the intolerant elements of the Sunni and Shia sects of Islam seem to hate each other more than they hate complete infidels.

In other words, we won't see a crusade or state-wide jihad declared any time soon. You need a lot of religious organisation and it has to be a very violent kind of religious organisation, like the knightly orders of Europe or the institutionalised expansionism of the Ottoman Empire.

We've nothing like that today.

edited 29th Aug '11 10:58:31 PM by GameChainsaw

Listen, Christianity is no longer an political idea like it was in the dark ages. Because of Constantine, Christianity turned into just another political party, albeit one which had some Differing views. Today, Christianity is a religion, and one that emphasizes being peaceful and forgiving your enemies over fighting with them. Of course their will always be a few ENICs (Extremist Nutbags In Charge) in Christianity, but there will always be a few of these guys in any religion. I don't think that Islam is evil just because a few people who followed it to an illogical conclusion and tried to blow us up are.

edited 30th Aug '11 4:57:30 AM by Jimmmyman10

Short of mass-cloning, mind control or a group retaining their fundamentalist hatred while still being able to recruit 1 billion+ followers while not having the group schisming and infighting itself to oblivion, I don't think so. The last one is what seems to scare people the most online, but it's about as likely as the former two to me.

@Jimmy

I mean full scale battles between different religions.

Not gonna happen.

(Well, aside from the possibility of a Revelations apocalypse)

edited 30th Aug '11 10:04:16 AM by Jimmmyman10