Religion and War

[SleepyWitch]

I haven't read all of this thread, so maybe this has been said before.
Someone has said that it is "human nature" to attack other countries just to express aggression. Come on, even animals have more of a 'just' reason for attacking members of their own species, such as sexual rivalry, food etc. Even if we assume people have a reason for starting wars, "human nature" is just a really lame excuse. I do agree that aggression is part of "human nature" and we'll probably never get rid of it. Also, aggression doesn't need to be a bad thing depending on how it is expressed or channeled. E.g. you could explain ambition as an expression of aggression in that people try to be better than others or 'fight' for a goal they want to reach. So without this sort of 'aggression' there would be no progress or competition. On the other hand, I don't understand why "human nature" is always used in a defeatist way as a label for negative aspects of human behaviour and the positive things that humankind is capable of are never mentioned. So are you saying that whatever positive things we happen to achieve are an aberration and we should actually not do them because they are not "human nature"?
To me, "human nature" also encompasses rationality and the ability to overcome aggressive impulses. So those who think wars are the only solution to problems or think it is justified to wage wars in the name of their national "interests" (whether these be material or ideological interests) are deliberately falling short of fulfilling their human potential. Humans are endowed with the ability to make decisions and if they decide to start a war, that's "fair enough" (NO, I'M NOT ARGUING IN FAVOUR OF WARS), but they don't have any right to blame it on any mysterious outside force, such as "human nature" when it was clearly their decision.

[Haunted]

Now you're being completely absurd.

There are laws to stop discriminatory actions, but there are no laws which prevent me from saying that religious people are: [/insert pejorative].

Excuse me, isn't that a personalized attack at me?

And isn't that a [pejorative] attack at religious people?



why are you so mad, is it because I/we are right?

[NikolaiI]

I'm kind of reminded of Einstein's statement that one can either live life as though everything is a miracle, or as though nothing is - when I happen to see something the Atheist wrote.

[The Atheist]

Oy, don't tar us all with the same brush!! SOME, I couldn't agree more, but not all.

Never all of them.

You've seen the man-love affair I'm having with Rowan Williams.



If only he'd shave. Scruffy bastard.

Excuse me, isn't that a personalized attack at me?

No. It's is clearly an example to show that your comment about USA's laws regarding speech and discrimination are two different things.

I hesitate to mention defensiveness, but it springs to mind when I make a clear hypothetical example that you choose to see as a personal attack.

And isn't that a [pejorative] attack at religious people?

No.

See above. It's neither an attack on you, or religious people.

And enough of the nonsense, there's an actual On Topic post been made!

Adminster as needed:

I haven't read all of this thread, so maybe this has been said before.
Someone has said that it is "human nature" to attack other countries just to express aggression. Come one, even animals have more of a 'just' reason for attacking members of their own species, such as sexual rivalry, food etc. Even if we assume people have a reason for starting wars, "human nature" is just a really lame excuse.

Can we just sum that up and say "competition"?

If we actually look at the animal kingdom, and even the plants for that matter - every living thing has evolved to be competitive. A big part of competing for resources is removing other plants & animals that use the same resources you do, so a large part of your evolutionary selection will swing towards the ability to physically beat off competition.

From creeper vines to lions, the ability to suffocate or dominate your competition is an innate trait. I think aggression

Humans are endowed with the ability to make decisions and if they decide to start a war, that's "fair enough" (NO, I'M NOT ARGUING IN FAVOUR OF WARS), but they don't have any right to blame it on any mysterious outside force, such as "human nature" when it was clearly their decision.

Well put.

I'd be first to agree that inability to outgrow our genetic imperatives is the biggest problem for humans - hell of a lot bigger than religion!

[Virgil]

Somehow I missed Juniper’s reply to me.

His whole point was that the instances of pacifism having been attempted are few. There are two grand examples of it having been attempted and greatly succeeding. Can you give any examples of it having been attempted on a grand scale and failing? If not then there's no proof that pacifism is doomed to failure. You see, because if it hasn't even been tried, then how do you know that it won't work?

There are not two grand examples. As I point out in my response to Atheist, which I’ll copy below, those are not two “grand” examples, b ut flawed examples. Both had violent other parties working in parallel for an over all effort. Plus those two examples are intra-national issues, not international wars. The only pure example of a entity stopping another national entity through a pacifist appeal was Pope Leo stopping Atilla and the Huns in the fifth century. If you know another, please let me know; I would be interested.
Here’s my response to Atheist:

Well, first of all MLK civil rights accomplishments were not an international war, so i don't even see what that has to do with the discussion. It was an intra-national issue. Second, you're pulling the pacificism out of context. Sure MLK was a pacifist who pushed civil rights laws in a non-violent manner. But in parallel there were lots of riots and violent outburts that went on for close to a century. All that contributed to the ultimate decisions to extend civil rights to african-americans. To simply say that MLK was solely responsible for changing the civil rights laws in the US is to again simplify to the point of fallacy. It's again a pop culture look at the issue. I can't speak with confidence to Ghandi's accomplishments, but again that has an element of an intra-national issue (though admittedly complicated because of colonialism) and he too was not working in an isolated vacuum. I believe there were lots of violent events in parallel with his non-violent approach. I don't see how one strips away the overall context.

As to not being tried, well, there have been lots of cultures that have not resisted with varying degrees of success. I would say there are two possibilities. Orphan-Pip mentions the slaughter of Hutus at the hands of the Tutsis.

The assassination of Habyarimana in April 1994 was the proximate cause of the mass killings of Tutsis and pro-peace Hutus. The mass killings were carried out primarily by two Hutu militias associated with political parties: the Interahamwe and the Impuzamugambi. The genocide was directed by a Hutu power group known as the Akazu. The mass killing also marked the end of the peace agreement meant to end the war, and the Tutsi RPF restarted their offensive, eventually defeating the army and seizing control of the country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide

Notice that the "pro-peace Hutus" were also slaughtered. There have been such mass slaughters of defenseless people throughout history.

The other possibility is that the conquering entity just absorbed the lesser cultures. Rome didn’t physically overcome all the Gaulic tribes in first century BC Gaul. It absorbed them and instituted their Roman rule and taxes and dominion. If you don’t wish to fight without humbling your honor, then one can just become sucked in. Mind you there was no a Gaulic in what is now France culture within a hundred years of their defeat.

Who's "we?"

Essentially NATO, but the US bore the largest burden.

I haven't read all of this thread, so maybe this has been said before.
Someone has said that it is "human nature" to attack other countries just to express aggression. Come one, even animals have more of a 'just' reason for attacking members of their own species, such as sexual rivalry, food etc. Even if we assume people have a reason for starting wars, "human nature" is just a really lame excuse. I do agree that aggression is part of "human nature" and we'll probably never get rid of it. Also, aggression doesn't need to be a bad thing depending on how it is expressed or channeled. E.g. you could explain ambition as an expression of aggression in that people try to be better than others or 'fight' for a goal they want to reach. So without this sort of 'aggression' there would be no progress or competition. On the other hand, I don't understand why "human nature" is always used in a defeatist way as a label for negative aspects of human behaviour and the positive things that humankind is capable of are never mentioned. So are you saying that whatever positive things we happen to achieve are an aberration and we should actually not do them because they are not "human nature"?
To me, "human nature" also encompasses rationality and the ability to overcome aggressive impulses. So those who think wars are the only solution to problems or think it is justified to wage wars in the name of their national "interests" (whether these be material or ideological interests) are deliberately falling short of fulfilling their human potential. Humans are endowed with the ability to make decisions and if they decide to start a war, that's "fair enough" (NO, I'M NOT ARGUING IN FAVOUR OF WARS), but they don't have any right to blame it on any mysterious outside force, such as "human nature" when it was clearly their decision.

I assume you’re referring to me. You assume that the rational choice that cultures make is to overcome their aggression. All choices are rational choices given the perspectives of the people making them. Because you don’t make the calculation that war is warranted doesn’t mean that other people see it the same. Otherwise there are no wars. War has been a part of human dynamics since the beginning of time. I listed this in several responses:

Did pacifism prevent ancient Roman conquest across Europe or Persia across asia or Chinese expansion and conquest across half of asia or Islamic conquest across north africa and western asia or germanic-viking conquest across northern Europe or slavic conquest across Russia and eastern Europe or or the Spanish conquistadors in the Americas or Napolean or Hitler or the Japanese raping of mainland China? The list goes on and on. Think of all the millions if not billions of people dead throughout history from aggression. There is little evidence that pacifism works, and I'm a Christian who believes in Christ's words.

Yes, there were lots of pacifist in this events. Many of the Indian cultures over taken by the conquistodores were relatively non-violent. Check out how the Viklings singled out monestaries because of their lack of will to fight. Or what about the Jews under the nazis. But to claim the roman Empire or seventh century Islamic jihad, or napoleon or Japanese conquest of China would have been halted from pacifism is - what can I say - laughable.

Should I continue and mention English, French, Belgium, Portugese, German, Italian colonialism? Or the Vedic empires or Alexander the Great or the Babylonian conquests, the Aztec empire, the list goes on and on across time and geography. Human nature is human nature. There has never been a 25 year period where there wasn't a major war somewhere on the planet. Even the Pax Romana is a fallacy. There was plenty of warfare during the 200 years.

Sleepy, if you can mention a twenty five year period on this planet where there hasn’t been a major war or conquest, I would love to know. Otherwise one has to conclude that humanity is prone to war and violence.

[Paulclem]

You've seen the man-love affair I'm having with Rowan Williams.

If only he'd shave. Scruffy bastard. The Atheist

[SleepyWitch]

I assume you’re referring to me. You assume that the rational choice that cultures make is to overcome their aggression. All choices are rational choices given the perspectives of the people making them. Because you don’t make the calculation that war is warranted doesn’t mean that other people see it the same. Otherwise there are no wars. War has been a part of human dynamics since the beginning of time.

You are right about that. I meant 'rational' in a more moral sense, not so much as in 'an effective means of achieving a particular aim.' I'm not trying to say that this is 'objective' or anything. My argument is clearly based on my personal opinion that wars are 'bad'. But neither is the idea that one country has the right to attack another to pursue its 'interests' objective. It's based on the idea that their interests are more important than another country's, i.e. selfishness. All I'm saying is that this is an ongoing discourse and we can't let warmongers get away with it and give them the right to define what is 'rational' and what is 'human nature'. Basically, by telling us that waging war is 'human nature' they are telling us that we are not 'human' if we disagree with them and that's just a really cheap trick. Most of the time when people start wars over resources, it's just the seemingly easiest solution to the problem. E.g. they could trade some resource they've got for one that they want (but they think it's too expensive), or they could invent some technology that allows them to use this resource more efficiently or do without it, or maybe they don't even need it at all. By the way, I'm not only talking about oil. I'm sure people have started wars for 'sillier' reasons, e.g. arable land, diamonds, luxuries that no country really needs to survive. E.g. Hitler's Lebensraum theory was bollocks because the population of Germany was a lot smaller back then than it is now and yet Germany is one of the most developed countries in the world now. That's because they use the land more efficiently now than they did back then, so they don't need more land. So in a way you are right: countries do attack each other just to wave their d***s at each other. But why should we let them get away with it? Why should a government have the right to decide that the death of its own soldiers (and possibly civilians) is a price worth paying to gain some resources or whatever? Should it not also be in the 'interest' of a state to preserve the life of its citizens? Of course, they will argue that their soldiers sacrificed their life for a 'greater good'. But do humans have the wisdom to decide what constitutes a greater good? By the way, I'm not only talking about governments. I'm also talking about terrorists who think it's justified to kill civilians. If it was really about feeling oppressed or something because they feel others don't respect or understand their religion/ ideology/ whatever, what they should do is seek dialogue and educate others about their views. So please don't think I'm only talking about governments or one government in particular. (You know what I mean).
About nonviolent resistance, I kind of agree with both you and the Atheist. I think the Atheist is right to point out that the reason it hasn't worked very often is because it wasn't even tried. But I agree with you that it would be more difficult and take longer than armed resistance. I suppose it all depends on the circumstances and how much you get involved in the fate of others. E.g. I think in the Roman empire, the conquered countries were allowed to retain their culture and language, so it wasn't that bad for them. So many leaders preferred to be assimilated and become part of the Roman elite. Whereas during the Third Reich, it might have been possible to just sit back and enjoy life, too. But then there was genocide going on and some people did not feel it was right to stand by as Hitler killed millions of Jews and other ethnic groups. Also, people had reason to fear that he would not allow them to retain their cultural identity in the long term, because he obviously believed in German supremacy. So it must have been clear to them that in the long term he would find some way to make racial distinctions even between white people from different countries and would persecute them. So under these circumstances I'm not sure passive resistance would have been a good idea.

Anyway, I totally agree with you that it would be utopian to assume that the majority of mankind can be convinced in the short term that wars are unnecessary just by talking and philosophy. So I suppose as long as we don't have 100% economic interdependence, some sort of (minimal) nuclear deterrence is the best solution for the moment. That's the only argument that will persuade some people that wars aren't a good idea. It's only when countries start an arms race and build up enough weapons to kill each other several times over that it becomes silly and a waste of money.

Edit to add:: You are right that there have been more periods of war than peace and it does seem that humanity is prone to war. But part of the reason we get this impression is that wars receive more attention and we study them more because they are more dramatic and thus more interesting. Peace is relatively boring. So we haven't always made enough of an effort to study the factors that can contribute to peace and help avoid wars. Peace Studies as an academic discipline has only emerged relatively recently.
Returning to 'human nature': You don't go around town raping random women or stealing other people's food just because it's in your 'human nature' to do so, do you? And the reason you don't do it is that there are moral laws and laws made by the state against it. So you would feel it's immoral or you would be punished by the state if you did it, right? So what I'm saying is we could have the same kind of moral laws or laws in a narrower sense against war, if we wanted to. But I agree that any organization put in charge of enforcing such laws would have to have more economic or military clout (as in deterrence) than existing organizations do.
I'd be glad to discuss any ideas for PREVENTING war that you might have. I know that you think it's 'human nature', but then you'd be hard pressed to argue why one country or group has the right to wage war while another doesn't.

[papayahed]

Note that off-topic and/or personal/inflammatory posts will be removed without further notice.

Those who have any personal differences with other member(s) should deal with them via PMs.

[Sebas. Melmoth]

War is nothing but mass wastage for the majority, with insanely large profits for the handful.

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Trillion...1909347&sr=1-1

[dafydd manton]

War is nothing but mass wastage for the majority, with insanely large profits for the handful.

http://www.amazon.com/Three-Trillion...1909347&sr=1-1

Spot On!

[Sebas. Melmoth]

Add Afghanistan, and the bill tops $7 trillion.

[Virgil]

You are right about that. I meant 'rational' in a more moral sense, not so much as in 'an effective means of achieving a particular aim.' I'm not trying to say that this is 'objective' or anything. My argument is clearly based on my personal opinion that wars are 'bad'.

Of course wars are bad. I don't think you'll find anyone disputing that.My point on "rationality" is that whoever decides to be an aggressor makes a rational decision, and those that defend themselves, either through pacifism or war make a rational decision. I think we agree on this.

But neither is the idea that one country has the right to attack another to pursue its 'interests' objective. It's based on the idea that their interests are more important than another country's, i.e. selfishness. All I'm saying is that this is an ongoing discourse and we can't let warmongers get away with it and give them the right to define what is 'rational' and what is 'human nature'.

I wasn't letting people justify war in anyway as an appeal to human nature. I was stating what i believe is a fact. People were arguing that war is caused by religion. Well, that's hokey. They are wars that happen from religion and wars that don't and if you look at history from a long view you (or at least I do) humanity finds reasons for wars. The cost of war usually outweighs any gains. You can't blame it on any particular reason but that group dynamics create an atmosphere where war seems like the rational choice, and it happens over and over again. I'm not saying it's human nature like sex is human nature, but it's part of us.

Basically, by telling us that waging war is 'human nature' they are telling us that we are not 'human' if we disagree with them and that's just a really cheap trick.

No, it's a group dynamics phenomena, in my opinion. you're envisioning "human nature" to be like sex or eating or things inside an individual. There are phenomena that occur as a result of group interactions, both as a bonding within a group and as an exclusionary view of other groups. The us versus the other. It's easy to understand the other as a phenomena. What is particularly interesting is the us phenomena, especially how group dynamics come to conclusions and modes of action. Most of the time it does not amount to anything violent. On occaision, I assume if the conditions are right, it does.

Most of the time when people start wars over resources, it's just the seemingly easiest solution to the problem.

Frankly I don't believe that's true. The cost of war far outweighs the gains, and that goes for ancient times as well, unless the conquored is percieved to be particularly weak. Most wars in my opinion have to do with group identity on the "us" side and "them" identity on the other side.

Why should a government have the right to decide that the death of its own soldiers (and possibly civilians) is a price worth paying to gain some resources or whatever?

Government is made up of the people, even in a dicatorship. For the most part, no one goes to war thinking they will die for some silly cause. They for the most part (and allowing for the dissenter of course) are on board with the action.

Should it not also be in the 'interest' of a state to preserve the life of its citizens? Of course, they will argue that their soldiers sacrificed their life for a 'greater good'. But do humans have the wisdom to decide what constitutes a greater good?

Of course. Even in the 5000 year history of humanity, at all times the majority of people did not go to war. Even though war occurs in all ages, the rational choice of the majoirity of people is not to go to war. But that's because the situation hasn't aligned itself for the group dynamics to choose such a thing. In murder, detectives say there are opportunity and motive. Let's use that as analogy. You need multiple events to align for the situation to bring out what I'm calling as a group dynamic of human nature. Maybe it's more than two things for war, and so war for any particular culture might go through a long time before occuring. But when you look across all the cultures across the world, someone will have those things align.

By the way, I'm not only talking about governments. I'm also talking about terrorists who think it's justified to kill civilians. If it was really about feeling oppressed or something because they feel others don't respect or understand their religion/ ideology/ whatever, what they should do is seek dialogue and educate others about their views. So please don't think I'm only talking about governments or one government in particular. (You know what I mean).

Ok. I agree, it's not just governments.

About nonviolent resistance, I kind of agree with both you and the Atheist. I think the Atheist is right to point out that the reason it hasn't worked very often is because it wasn't even tried. But I agree with you that it would be more difficult and take longer than armed resistance.

It hasn't been tried because there have been too many instances of people becoming chop meat. I gave the example of Rwanda above. You as a German ought to know what happen to the Jews in 1930's and 40's. Part of the response to aggression requires also a group dynamic decision. As the group tries to make a decision on how to respond - pacifist resistence or fight back - it's very hard for a group to decide that it's better to turn the other cheek when some member of their group has been humiliated or killed. The risk of being wrong by choosing to not fight back can be catastrophic (as the Jews found out), and so a group will more than likely fight back. And I can't blame them.

I suppose it all depends on the circumstances and how much you get involved in the fate of others. E.g. I think in the Roman empire, the conquered countries were allowed to retain their culture and language, so it wasn't that bad for them.

Some yes, some no. But nonetheless they were under their laws and taxation.

So many leaders preferred to be assimilated and become part of the Roman elite. Whereas during the Third Reich, it might have been possible to just sit back and enjoy life, too. But then there was genocide going on and some people did not feel it was right to stand by as Hitler killed millions of Jews and other ethnic groups. Also, people had reason to fear that he would not allow them to retain their cultural identity in the long term, because he obviously believed in German supremacy. So it must have been clear to them that in the long term he would find some way to make racial distinctions even between white people from different countries and would persecute them. So under these circumstances I'm not sure passive resistance would have been a good idea.

You can see exactly what I'm talking about in group decision making.

Anyway, I totally agree with you that it would be utopian to assume that the majority of mankind can be convinced in the short term that wars are unnecessary just by talking and philosophy. So I suppose as long as we don't have 100% economic interdependence, some sort of (minimal) nuclear deterrence is the best solution for the moment. That's the only argument that will persuade some people that wars aren't a good idea. It's only when countries start an arms race and build up enough weapons to kill each other several times over that it becomes silly and a waste of money.

Hey I agree. Economic interdependence is the key. I also think deterence is the key as well. If some nation thinks you are an easy target, they may make the calculation that war is cost effective.

Edit to add:: You are right that there have been more periods of war than peace and it does seem that humanity is prone to war. But part of the reason we get this impression is that wars receive more attention and we study them more because they are more dramatic and thus more interesting. Peace is relatively boring.

I think we study war in history because it's usually a turning point in national circumstances. It's not that peace is boring, but that war has created a dividing line.

So we haven't always made enough of an effort to study the factors that can contribute to peace and help avoid wars. Peace Studies as an academic discipline has only emerged relatively recently.

I do think people have. There are books on it.

Returning to 'human nature': You don't go around town raping random women or stealing other people's food just because it's in your 'human nature' to do so, do you?

I would hope not.

And the reason you don't do it is that there are moral laws and laws made by the state against it. So you would feel it's immoral or you would be punished by the state if you did it, right?

I think it's more complicvated than that, but ok I'll accept that.

So what I'm saying is we could have the same kind of moral laws or laws in a narrower sense against war, if we wanted to. But I agree that any organization put in charge of enforcing such laws would have to have more economic or military clout (as in deterrence) than existing organizations do.
I'd be glad to discuss any ideas for PREVENTING war that you might have. I know that you think it's 'human nature', but then you'd be hard pressed to argue why one country or group has the right to wage war while another doesn't.

But then you're getting back to where people go to war. The deterring entity would have to occaisionally fight the ones that got out of line. That's still war.

I believe we can create conditions where group dynamics make the prevelant choice to not go to war. How many times did France and Germany prior to WWII go to war? Napoleonic wars, 1870, WWI, WWII - that's four that I count in about 150 years. Can you envision today France and Germany going to war? I can't. We have created conditions (economic interdependence, deterence) that such a choice is completely unrational. That's what needs to be done across the world. My problem in this thread has been the thinking that pacifism is what prevents war or solves problems of aggression. The instances that pacifism has worked across time is rare. It's not pacifism that prevents war. That only makes the opponent to an aggressor appear vulnerable and may actually insentivize him to attack.

[SleepyWitch]

Interesting point about group dynamics. Thanks for explaining it. I understand your argument a lot better now.

Yep, the costs of war outweigh the gains. That's why I said "the seemingly easiest solution.

I agree, that religions do not cause wars but are used as a justification. Hahah, I'll probably be expelled from the atheists' club for that

But then you're getting back to where people go to war. The deterring entity would have to occaisionally fight the ones that got out of line. That's still war.

I'm aware of that. It's not ideal, but I suppose it's the best we can get.

I believe we can create conditions where group dynamics make the prevelant choice to not go to war. How many times did France and Germany prior to WWII go to war? Napoleonic wars, 1870, WWI, WWII - that's four that I count in about 150 years. Can you envision today France and Germany going to war? I can't. We have created conditions (economic interdependence, deterence) that such a choice is completely unrational. That's what needs to be done across the world. My problem in this thread has been the thinking that pacifism is what prevents war or solves problems of aggression. The instances that pacifism has worked across time is rare. It's not pacifism that prevents war. That only makes the opponent to an aggressor appear vulnerable and may actually insentivize him to attack.

I do believe that if a majority of those involved in decision-making (i.e. politicians and their advisers) were pacifists it would work, but I don't think you find many pacifists in such positions. Of course, it would also work if everyone was a hippie and smoked dope and sr*wed around all day, because then they'd be too busy to go to war. But even most hippies got tired of that and smoking dope etc. never did much for putting food on people's tables. Or maybe some of them change their mind once they are faced with having to defend their country. Let's assume we have a few hundred years of economic interdependence and peace. Do you think humans would just forget about wars then and wouldn't be bothered to attack others anymore even if the economic circumstances changed slightly or if deterrence was toned down? Or would old group dynamics/ human nature kick in as soon as the deterring entity gave them some slack or economic interdependence decreased? (This is a genuine question.)


(P.S.: I don't think the Jews in WW2 are a good example of non-violent resistance. I don't think they made a group decision to use passive resistance. I think they were just confused and also we can't see them as a monolithic group. There were relatively recent immigrants from Eastern Europe and then there were successful middle class people who had lived in Germany for a long time. These people had always been German citizens and done their bit for the country, so it took them a long time to realize that Hitler meant action. There was no organized movement like Ghandi's. ... Hum, I might have got that wrong, so lets not argue too much about it.)

[The Atheist]

I agree, that religions do not cause wars but are used as a justification. Hahah, I'll probably be expelled from the atheists' club for that

Nah, you're safe. Aside from a couple, I agree with you, and I make the damned rules.

Let's assume we have a few hundred years of economic interdependence and peace. Do you think humans would just forget about wars then and wouldn't be bothered to attack others anymore even if the economic circumstances changed slightly or if deterrence was toned down? Or would old group dynamics/ human nature kick in as soon as the deterring entity gave them some slack or economic interdependence decreased? (This is a genuine question.)

And I'll give you a genuine answer:

Without strong reasons for controlling nationalism and national agression, they will re-surface. That community violence will always be there, ready to be exploited.

The violence in Greece's riots recently were just an aperitif of what can happen in no time.

The Serbia/Croatia/Bosnia/etc cluster** is a great example of how it can happen. The various groups in that conflict had been under an enforced "peace" for at least a couple of generations. As soon as the lid was taken off with Tito's death, whoof! Up she goes in flames.

People hate a lot.

(P.S.: I don't think the Jews in WW2 are a good example of non-violent resistance. I don't think they made a group decision to use passive resistance. I think they were just confused and also we can't see them as a monolithic group. There were relatively recent immigrants from Eastern Europe and then there were successful middle class people who had lived in Germany for a long time. These people had always been German citizens and done their bit for the country, so it took them a long time to realize that Hitler meant action. There was no organized movement like Ghandi's. ... Hum, I might have got that wrong, so lets not argue too much about it.)

No, you might have got it dead right!

WWII Jews/The Holocaust is not an example of pacificism.

[Virgil]

I agree, that religions do not cause wars but are used as a justification. Hahah, I'll probably be expelled from the atheists' club for that

Well, you might what to ponder on this as well: Of the three instances of successful pacifism sited within the thread all three were led by religious figures. Martin Luther King was a Protestant minister, Ghandi was a Hindu spiritual leader (not sure if he had a title), and Pope Leo was of course the head of the Catholic Church.

I do believe that if a majority of those involved in decision-making (i.e. politicians and their advisers) were pacifists it would work,

How would you guarrentee that for all of eternity?

but I don't think you find many pacifists in such positions. Of course, it would also work if everyone was a hippie and smoked dope and sr*wed around all day, because then they'd be too busy to go to war.

Yeah and the general population would be in poverty.

Let's assume we have a few hundred years of economic interdependence and peace. Do you think humans would just forget about wars then and wouldn't be bothered to attack others anymore even if the economic circumstances changed slightly or if deterrence was toned down? Or would old group dynamics/ human nature kick in as soon as the deterring entity gave them some slack or economic interdependence decreased? (This is a genuine question.)

I think thinking that we can ever eliminate war is a utopian delusion. My biggest fear is that people will be lulled into a false sense of security. Returning to that France/German example I gave. I meant to say that a war between the two was unlikely in the foreseeable future. I am not God. I cannot see the varying circumstances that will arise, but I can tell you that circumstances will change. It is not beyond the realm of possibilty that a war between the two may happen in a hundred years from now. How and why, I don't know. Conditions will realter. History seems to show that. And if you think that national borders mean something, forget that too. Every culture has sub cultures. Hutus and Tutsies came from the same country. Hatred from one regional group for another in the same country exists every where, especially in large entities. Any large set of population will divide itself into groups. Heck, New York City is filled with dozens of sub groups. There will always be an "us" and "them". That is absolutely human nature.

(P.S.: I don't think the Jews in WW2 are a good example of non-violent resistance. I don't think they made a group decision to use passive resistance. I think they were just confused and also we can't see them as a monolithic group. There were relatively recent immigrants from Eastern Europe and then there were successful middle class people who had lived in Germany for a long time. These people had always been German citizens and done their bit for the country, so it took them a long time to realize that Hitler meant action. There was no organized movement like Ghandi's. ... Hum, I might have got that wrong, so lets not argue too much about it.)

They didn't resist. They were aware of the hatred and had many examples of the violence let upon them. There may have not been a coordinated pacifist resistence, but would that have mattered? I forget which holocaust survivor said this, but it has stuck with me for years. Maybe it was Ellie Weissel, I don't know. When asked what lessen from the holocaust one should take back, he said that when someone tells you they intend to kill you, believe them. He felt that most Jews did not believe the rhetoric and the spoken intentions of those who perpetrated the holocaust. It just seemed so unlikely that they really meant it. And so they didn't put up a real resistence. When someone tells you they intend to kill you, believe them. And given that, how can pacifism ever win out in a group dynamic decision making process? I certainly wouldn't buy into it.