Religion may not be the cause of all wars and all divisions, but sometimes -- if we blindly follow or listen without thinking -- it surely does seem that way.
Without religious differences, some say, there would have been no 9/11 attacks, no Israeli-Palestinian conflict, no Holocaust, no Croatian ethnic cleansing, no bomb blasts in Northern Ireland. And maybe no Islamic State.
Hardly. It's true that religion may be a factor, but religion doesn't make people murder each other. It just offers more labels to be tossed into the "hate" bundle.
Several studies in recent years, including one published in October from the New York and Sydney-based Institute for Economics and Peace, found no religious role at all in 40 percent of the 35 armed conflicts that took place in 2013, and only 14 percent had religious elements as their main cause. The Encyclopedia of Wars, published in 2008, states that only 123 of the 1,763 wars throughout human history were "religious in nature." That's less than 7 percent.
Nonetheless, the use of religion as a flash point for labeling is alive and well -- especially among America's wedge-hungry conservatives. Some of them played the card again recently, feigning outrage at favorite target President Barack Obama after he spoke earlier this month at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.
"We see faith inspiring people to lift up one another ... . But we also see faith being twisted and distorted, used as a wedge -- or, worse, sometimes used as a weapon," he told the group, pointing mainly to the brutalities of the Islamic State. But he made it clear that all religions, including Christianity, have been exploited by people on fire with hate and cruelty.
"Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."
Many conservatives jumped immediately to defend Christianity from any criticism instead of taking a clear stand against religious violence. Past and current GOP presidential candidates Rick Santorum, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, Bobby Jindal and Jim Gilmore attacked the president's comments.
"The president's comments this morning at the prayer breakfast are the most offensive I've ever heard a president make in my lifetime," said Gilmore, a former Virginia governor. "He has offended every believing Christian in the United States. This goes further to the point that Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share."
It makes you wonder what speech he was listening to.
But conservative commentators gasped just as loudly and ridiculously. Conservative activist Star Parker shocked even Fox host Sean Hannity by calling the remarks "verbal rape."
Of course there are conservatives with level heads. Washington Post columnist Micheal Gerson recently wrote this of the president's prayer breakfast speech: "its basic framework -- pitting true faith against nihilistic violence -- will be adopted by every future president."
And Gerson wrote: "Most of those urging Obama to assert that Islam is somehow especially flawed among the great faiths have never been closer to power than a fuse box." Gerson also noted that former President George W. Bush, just days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, took off his shoes, entered a Muslim prayer room at the Islamic Center of Washington, spoke with Muslim leaders and made a short statement. "These acts of violence against innocents," he said, "violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. ... The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam."
Of course wars aren't the only places where we let evil or short-sighted people hijack truths with religious knee jerks.
Alabama Judge Roy Moore (the same one once known as the 10 Commandments judge) in his recent dramatic show of defiance toward a federal judge's rule not to further delay gay marriages in Alabama, chose to forget that our nation's Constitution and laws strive to respect both religious freedom and legal governmental judgments. Moore was deliberately trying to confuse the spirit and intent of separating church and state when he ordered the Alabama probate judges to not issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
We've also seen religion used as a club locally. Just look at the church that in 2013 cast out a woman who stood beside her daughter, who is openly gay.
Religion -- by any name -- is and should be about love, not hate.