Thanks AU 🙂

Yes. The fact that both sides were using exactly the same religious arguments to exhort their people to greater efforts should have given them pause. But, as always with religion, they just decide that the “others” are wrong. Religion is so often more about dividing people than uniting them.

Thanks for your comments Paxton.

Many studies of the origins of the First World War describe it as “inevitable”. It saddens me that any war should be considered that way, but this one was, in my opinion, about as avoidable as they come.

There was a scene in Blackadder Goes Forth where the General was standing over a model of the land captured by the British in a particular battle in which many lives were lost – it was about a metre square, and 1:1 scale. It’s a “joke” representative of the whole war.

If you look at religious writing every faith seems to extol the virtues of peace and caring for one’s fellows.

I have yet to see any logic that shows how these two ideologies are compatible.

Human conflict and religious differences seem to be deeply linked in history. As a species we should be able to do better!

There was no good reason for WWI and the willingness of Christian leaders to make cause with other religions to kill their fellow Christians, demonstrates once again that religion is nothing more than a propaganda machine to serve the interests of the rich and powerful. Millions of poor dupes were led to their deaths by religious leaders serving their own selfish interests. It’s disgusting, but it’s the reality and has been since religion was invented for that very purpose.