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When reproached for inspiring terror during the French Revolution, Maximilien de Robespierre reportedly responded that speaking against justified violence and sympathizing with the enemy was equivalent to tyranny itself. "The enemy" for Robespierre was a system that he, and all good Jacobins, saw as inherently tyrannical and responsible for historic injustices and with whose fallen figures the righteous and enlightened should not commiserate. Hence, to those who complained about terror by asserting the innocence of some of its victims, Robespierre metaphorically replied, "Stop shaking the tyrant's bloody robe in my face, or I will believe that you wish to put Rome in chains."1
Although they were made in the context of political revolution, Robespierre's remarks resemble the inciting speeches of ethnoreligious leaders who, in the context of social crises, use religious rhetoric to incite attacks on an entire group of people, combatants and non-combatants.2Like other inflammatory speakers, Robespierre relied on widely accepted ideals and beliefs to respond to the dynamic conditions of his times, to frame an emergent political struggle as a destined conflict, and to justify violence morally. Religion is often used for these purposes. Through shared beliefs and intense rituals, religion creates tight social bonds and apparent group homogeneity, which leaders or elites can manipulate alongside other behavioral propensities both to induce and intensify intergroup conflict. Moreover, leaders can exploit religion's ability to rouse individuals, and to unify people under a single banner through emotionally evocative and highly memorable symbols and myths.
Does this mean, then, as some suggest,3,4that religion is prone to instigating violence? From our 21st century standpoint, where news of religious violence dominates headlines, we may be tempted to say that it does. However, our judgment is likely biased in a number of ways by our secular environment. One such bias is the myth of religious violence: the belief that religion is the chief cause of the world's bloodshed.5As Armstrong observes, this myth is widely believed, but it is problematic on several fronts. For one thing it is mistaken about the causes of conflict. From the French Revolution to the catastrophic wars of the 20th century, many nation-states, secular communities, and sociopolitical movements--even state-making movements6--did not embrace religion but still...