User:Glottalpoly

= Claim = Only  6.7% of wars are religious.

= Rationale = Philip & Axelrod’s index lists 1763 wars, but only lists 120 wars under the heading “Religious wars”.

Note – the index actually lists 121 wars under the “Religious Wars” heading in the index but it lists “ Religion, Sixth and Seventh Wars of (1576–1577, 1580)” as one entry.

= Issues & Assumptions = A fundamental observation here is that this is the reference cited by theists as the basis of the claim. Theists have CHOSEN to accept this work as being an acceptable source to analyse the claim of the number of religious wars.

If a formal analysis shows that the claim is unfounded, theists CANNOT then claim that the source cant be relied upon.

The claim is further predicated on the false (sic) assumption that the index lists ALL the wars that the body of the text has identified as religious.

Nowhere is this reasoning provided, and nowhere is there an attempt to demonstrate that this is a reasonable assumption.

Even just a glance at the (alphabetical) titles of the wars (pages iv to xv) or chronological list of wars (pages 1406 to 1425) should make a casual reader suspicious that 120 is an underestimation.

= Methodology =

If we make a list of the names of the wars from the body of the document, and search for obvious key words (like Allah, Amir, Arab-Israeli, Bishop, Caliphate, Catholic, Charlemagne, Christian, Church, Crusade, Covenanter, Druse, Hindu, Holy, Imam, Janissaries, Jew, Monk, Mormon, Muslim, Papal, Pope, Protestant, Religion, Sacred, Saint, Saladin, Shi’ite, Sikh, Sultan, Sunni, Taliban, Temple) we have already identified 127 Wars – already more than claimed.

If we expand the list to include lesser known religions and religious groups (like Almohad, Almoravid, Fatimid, Hamdanids, Ikshidids, Janissar, Kharijite, Khurramite, Maratha, Moro, Mogul, Muhammad, Saffarid) that gives us 163 Religious wars – more than 40 more than claimed.

A comparison with the claimed 120 yields a surprising list of 43 religious wars NOT included under the “Religious Wars” rubric, including   :

·       Arab Israeli Wars

·       Sultanate Wars

·       Holy Roman Empire Wars

·       Jewish Revolts

·       Muslim Wars

·       Sikh Wars

At this point we are immediately struck by the inescapable conclusion that the index is a selection of religious wars and not comprehensive (and nor does it claim to be). The index says nothing more than “These Wars Are Religious”.

The claim that only 7% of wars are religious, citing Axelrod & Phillips has to EXPLICITLY exclude Arab Israeli Wars, Sultanate Wars, Holy Roman Empire Wars, Jewish Revolts, Muslim Wars and Sikh Wars - the war titles as p[rovided by the authors.

Let’s expand the search methodology looking solely at “Combatants” (as specified in the classification for each war), and use our keyword search technique on the combatants.

The combatants section permits much more detail than a “Name”, and it is no surprise that it yields an even greater list – in fact there are 228 wars listed where the combatants are religious groups  (from the list above) - and 147 of those wars are NOT listed in the index as “Religious Wars”.

This list (of Wars with Religious combatants but not indexed as Religious Wars) includes :

·       Druse Rebellions

·       Fatimid Conquests

·       Janissaries Revolts

·       Mogul Wars

·       Shi’ite Rebellions

·       Venetian Turkish Wars

And to reiterate – 147 of these wars with religious protagonists are NOT indexed as “Religious Wars”.

At this point it is clear, and beyond debate, that the index reflects, “A Classification” of some wars that are religious but NOT in any sense a comprehensive classification.

Now let’s expand our search even further – and read the descriptions and details of each war. This is an incredibly slow, laborious activity, but in the spirit of completeness – it has been done – All 1762 wars have been reviewed, and religious factors as documented in the encyclopedia itself (without external reference), have been recorded.

Note : depending on whether one uses the alphabetical list, the chronological list, or the body of the encyclopedia, there are minor variations in numbers of wars (e.g. WWII is described as one war in the indexes, and multiple wars with different geographical fronts, in the body of the encyclopedia).

What does this yield ? This provides the grand total of 459 religious wars, of which only 120 are mentioned in the index, and now we know that there are 459 wars – this possibly explains why they aren’t all included under the one index heading. Possibly the authors could have created a completely new separate section “Religious Wars” – but they didn’t.

Clearly the unjustified and untested methodology of using the index to determine the number of religious wars, is fundamentally flawed, and dramatically understates the causes as identified by the authors in the body.

= Findings =

The encyclopedia (that is cited by theists as an acceptable source for Religious War analysis)  lists 459 religious wars out of 1762 in total – 26%.

The inescapable arithmetical conclusion is that ONE WAR IN FOUR IS RELIGIOUS, and the claim of one war in fifteen (6.8%) is not only not supported by the reference material as cited by theists but explicitly refuted.

= Conclusions = 1) The demonstrably flawed theist methodology understates the percentage of religious wars by a factor of around FOUR.

2) It is likely that those citing the Encyclopedia as the source for the caim - have never read it.

3) By their own admissions of the Encyclopedia as a legitimate source to answer the question - adherenets acknowledge THAT AT LEAST ONE WAR IIN FOUR IS A RELIGIOUS WAR.