Yes And No

‘Religion’ causes nothing. It doesn’t exist as a causal entity. As E. Thomas Lawson has indicated it is important to maintain a clear distinction between cause and facilitation, specifically when making motivational claims.  At one level it does seem that religious ideas are complicit in motivating various behaviors, including violent behavior, if by motivating one means facilitating. Conventional wisdom suggests that religious conceptual schemes are very effective for doing so (as well as being optimally designed for transmission). That they actually cause violent behavior is a much more dubious claim, however popular.  Violent behavior is the output of an aggregate of evolutionarily selected for cognitive systems responsible for folk psychological stances concerning coalitions, mate guarding, hazard management, social information management, etc.  Religious ideas are often appealed to as a motivating force for violent acts but what this amounts to is a cum hoc ergo propter hoc argument...<READ MORE>