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Fire & Sword

Does Religion Promote Violence?

R. Scott Appleby

Among the forces that motivate people to torture and kill other people, religion is unique. In wars or other forms of collective violence it inspires the worst kind of killing—indiscriminate, unrelenting, insatiable. “Sacred rage” is the default mode of zealots driven by a devotion that is absolute, irrational, and inevitably divisive. These self-styled true believers are (...)


 

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