Imagine no religion—and, therefore, no war. It’s easy if you try, and a number of recent writers have done so: the "new atheists," who find religion irrational and believe that its skewed perspective permits, encourages, sometimes even demands war. It’s true that the Torah clearly asserts that war is an ongoing part of God’s plan for the world: “The Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation” (Exodus 17:16). But who is Amalek in this generation, and what role do contemporary Jews—and the Christians, Muslims, Mormons, and Baha’is who have followed them in the Bible’s wake—have in that war? Put bluntly, does religious belief increase the danger of war or reduce it?
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