Tired of People Blaming Religion for Wars? Research Verifies Faith is NOT the Main Cause

Teresa Neumann-Commentary : Nov 21, 2014
Tony Blair Faith Foundation

"The most peaceful countries are not necessarily the least religious, and the least peaceful countries are not necessarily highly religious."

(United Kingdom)—It never fails. Whenever terrorists' attacks are reported, atheists or religion-hating trolls swamp the comment section of various news sites with vitriolic responses blaming religion as the sole cause of all the world's ills.

A new study has debunked that notion, and the beauty of it this: the reasons given for outbreaks of violence around the world are so rational and obvious a first-grader would understand. Entitled, "Religion is Not Main Cause of War, Research Suggests," the study conducted by the Institute for Economics and Peace found that it's not religion that is the main cause of war, but corruption, political terror, gender, economic inequality and political instability.

Imagine that.

In fact, the study found that countries with greater religious freedoms are generally more peaceful, whereas countries with less religious freedom are generally less peaceful.

"Full democracies are the most peaceful and have the greatest level of religious freedom, regardless of the type of religious belief or various religious characteristics," noted the report, adding that four out of the ten countries with the highest level of atheism (New Zealand being #1, along with some former communist countries) are less peaceful than the global average.

Click here to read the report in its entirety. As a matter of fact, I plan on saving the link. It will be a handy one to use the next time I'm in an online debate with a religion-hating atheist ;-)