religion and war throughout western civilizations

History has shown that religion has been the cause of the majority of our wars, mostly due to the power the church has had over the common man – the promise of a better life, either earthly or in an afterlife.

The crusades are a perfect example of this -- the pope, who basically IS the (Catholic) church when it comes to power, ordered the nobles of Europe to go forth and free the holy land from the infidels. Many lives were lost in the name of religion from that decision.

The rise of Protestantism brought even more turmoil into an already religiously- chaotic world. Lutheranism, and after that Calvinism, created religious conflict throughout Europe; this led to the devastating period known as the Thirty Years’ War -- a war which involved most of Europe, yet was staged in Germany.

Religious conflict cracked apart the infrastructure of French society and created an extremely long-lasting civil war, the likes of which France had never seen. The introduction of Lutheranism and Calvinism into the already religiously fragile French culture was simply too much to bear, as this war between French Catholics and Protestants lasted from 1562 -1598.

Bartholomew’s day Massacre

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