Safiya Jan ENGL 104

Religion An Excuse. THE Excuse.

Religion, in the present day society, acts as the backbone of all ongoing conflicts. A
line most commonly used by atheists to defend their stance on the reason for
modern day warfare. Most recently, the 9/11 attacks in the United States caused the
greatest uproar in islamophobia. People needed something or someone to put the
blame on. They needed a sense of closure and a sense of justice to what had been
done to their loved so brutally. So they blamed Islam. They stated that the religion
advocated war and terror amongst people. They described that Islam was the real
antagonist in the entire show. We, as humans, have completely forged our opinion
on conflict based on what the media had drilled into our brains. We see what is on
the surface but not what is beneath. We hear but we never listen. This has to stop.
We need to realize that we cannot blindly blame a religion for all the ongoing
conflict that has plagued our nations. We need to open our brains and think for
once.

Many academic studies have strived to calculate a distinct link between conflict and
religion. One study clearly stated that in a record of all wars recorded throughout
human history, a whopping 7% were religious in nature. The other 93% of wars
were extensively linked with the motivation of opposing a government or opposing
the political, economic and social structures of a state. Furthermore media has also
played a huge role in our understanding of current global conflicts. The industry has
manipulated the truth in order to create an atmosphere of confusion and
bewilderment amongst our society. News agencies such as CNN and FOX News have
often been questioned on the credibility of their news and their sources. Regardless
of such issues, people are still oblivious to the actual truth.

One study has also described that if a country is less religious, it does not
particularly mean that it is more peaceful. The percentage of non-believers in a
country bore no connection to the level of peacefulness within that country.
Ironically, countries with high levels of atheism such as Russia and North Korea,
were recorded as being a few of the least peaceful nations on earth. As you can
notice here, what a person believes in plays no significant role in whether or not
that being is dangerous or pleasant. We often use religious aspects to describe the
Safiya Jan ENGL 104

surface of a particular conflict but in actual reality, the situation is much more
complex than what is seems to be. Religion can be used to summarize any conflict
at the surface and that is all what we hear/see as humans. We are never shown
what is hidden beneath the surface. The depth of the reality never reaches to us.

Our perception and our opinions on global conflicts have been widely molded by
what we chose to hear and what we chose to see. We have been practically brain
washed by ourselves. What we need to do, is to open up our minds and stop falsely
blaming a religion for a conflict when in reality the situation is completely different.
We use religion as an excuse in order to validate our actions and our thought. We
twist words from religious scriptures out of context and mold them into something
that others perceive as the truth. This is not only immoral but absolutely repugnant.
We, as a united community, should be utterly ashamed of ourselves.