Maybe you're hopelessly prejudiced.

Kill them all and let God sort them out.

He's not the Messiah he's a very naughty boy!

There's this thing from Physicist Steven Weinberg:

"Frederick Douglass told in his Narrative how his condition as a slave became worse when his master underwent a religious conversion that allowed him to justify slavery as the punishment of the children of Ham. Mark Twain described his mother as a genuinely good person, whose soft heart pitied even Satan, but who had no doubt about the legitimacy of slavery, because in years of living in antebellum Missouri she had never heard any sermon opposing slavery, but only countless sermons preaching that slavery was God's will. With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil — that takes religion."

I'd add totalitarian ideologies to the category of "religion" as well, but I think that's a pretty good characterization.

"If you really believe in a higher power why would you support the torture/murder of innocent people"
Is there anything higher power in specific you're referring to? In general, I'm not sure I understand why belief in a higher power would necessarily preclude support of torture or murder of anyone, innocent or otherwise, just as I'm not sure why belief in a higher power would necessarily entail acting kindly and solicitously toward others.

"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition."

Only through torture can the truth come out. Or at least the fear of torture will lead to a confession. Although the Spanish Inquisition wasn't as bad as portrayed, the Catholic Church and later Protestant ones were quite willing to do what was necessary to bring God to the unbelievers, those that didn't accept their version of the Truth.

Or, maybe religion is wasted on the religious.

If we had people such as Jesus, the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), Buddha, Guru Nanak, Abraham, etc, etc what would they be doing.
Would they be leading their people into war against the non-believers or would they be castigating and condemning there so called supporters for using their name to promote violence and hatred.
For the most part any readings you see about these people make them sound like thoroughly decent chaps, I find it hard to believe that they would advocate war.
If that is the case then why are the modern way supporters so off-message. What is driving all of the war we see in the world today.
We can't just blame Islamic extremists because we have been killing them for fun for centuries now, everything they do now is in some part a result of Western policies in times gone by, how we divided up the world during the 2nd world war, regimes that have been toppled, wars that have been fought, etc, etc.
In my lifetime so-called Christian armies have always been up for going to war, can't seem to get enough of it.
Howzabout we all have a go at Taoism .... and all adopt just one religion. Then we will have to admit that the reason we fight is not for a noble cause at all, it is just pure greed. There is no righteousness in war and all people who support it I hope will be damned to hell if there is such a place. If not then you spend the afterlife watching re-runs of the Jeremy Kyle show and have to shop at Iceland and have mullet hair styles and wear tank tops.

TH following is getting a bit off-topic. As offensive as I find the idea that religion is the sole, or even biggest, cause of war in the world, the implications that war is inherently evil are eve more offensive. I would like to address them.

Nigee, you say these religious figures "sound like thoroughly decent chaps, I find it hard to believe that they would advocate war."

Does this imply that good people cannot advocate war, that anyone who supports a war is almost certainly a bad person? Mohammed for one was a famous military leader, but, shockingly, also a pretty awesome human being.

Horrifying things happen in war. To quote American Confederate general Robert Lee, "It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it." Despite this, war can be a useful tool for keeping international order.

In my opinion, Mohammed would not stand aside and let ISIS take control of his country without resistance. Moses historically is against the oppression of the Jews, and while war wouldn't have been his first choice, I find it unlikely he would have condemned allied forces for fighting nazi Germany.

Now I am not saying that there are wars my country couldn't have avoided, but even the bad ones tended to seem justified at the time, and had some redeeming qualities.

Violence is always evil. It sometimes must be done for the sake of defense, but this does not justify whoever strikes first. Warfare is a disease, a mental illness. A rejection of the truth, namely, that there are no sides with which to fight, there is only one side. "All war deception," says Sun Tzu. He is right.

In a perfect world, there would be no war. This is not a perfect world. We can only control our own actions, and do our best to influence others. If another chooses to be a serial killer, should we not hunt them down? The same applies on a national scale.

In a perfect world we would have some way of preventing serial killers from showing up in the first place. However we would essentially have to eliminate their free will to choose to do so, which might be morally wrong in and of itself.

@Thucydides your poetic license needs to be revoked. When Sun Tzu said "All war deception" it was in the context of this larger statement I found on Wikipedia:

"All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near."

UNLESS WIKIPEDIA IS WRONG (about this), I'm pretty sure he wasn't supporting your assertion that "there are no sides with which to fight, there is only one side."

If you want to re-purpose someone's words for art's sake, go ahead and write a poem, but don't just play with words in an argument.

(GOD help me if someone who has actually read Sun Tzu in the original finds that Wikipedia is wrong.)

Abraham repeated went to war either to protect family members or to ally with neighbors against others. It's always possible to rationalize a justification to fight.

I've read Sun Tzu, silly. By the way, did you know the the Chinese language lends itself to multiple interpretations, much like poetry? Re-read that first paragraph a few times, don't get caught up in the prepositions. See what else it can mean.

Also, it doesn't really matter what Sun Tzu himself thought. I'm saying "all war is deception" is true. That's me saying that, not Sun Tzu.

Man, what did I do to get you so worked up?

I'm honestly a little floored you don't see how the paragraph can be interpreted in the sense I was talking. When we are able to attack, we must seem unable. Maybe that actually means the successful general doesn't attack at all. When using our forces, we must appear inactive. What is the easiest way to appear inactive? Perhaps this is the most effective form of warfare. The only winning move is not to play.

Two things, Thucy-

1, your OP quoting Sun Tzu. I can still only read it as "Sun Tzu said all war is a lie" Maybe you honestly did not intend that. But that is what you wrote from my pov.

2, yes, Sun Tzu would likely be impressed by a general who was able to achieve his objectives without committing forces to battle. Armed combat was to him the lowest form of conflict, representative of other methods failing. But when those other methods do fail, armed conflict is necessary and proper, according to Sun.

That basically is my pro-war argument. When another nation threatens human lives and rights, diplomacy should be the first resort. If diplomacy fails, threaten to take action. If threats fail, take action. If action fails, use military force.

And I'm saying, even when war is supposedly necessary, we should ask, is it really necessary? Of course some military action can be justified. But should they be?

And yes that's what I was getting at with my OP.

Do armies defend positions so that positions might be defended? Or is there some higher reason we defend ourselves with arms? If so, I ask, what is this reason, and can it not be achieved without fighting?

The generals will go on fighting. Let them. They say their weapons make us safer, but nothing can save us from death.

@Thucydides I don't really have an axe to grind, but when I see mumbo-jumbo like "That there are no sides with which to fight, there is only one side"... I can't let that slide.

I'm not a warmonger at all, but what you're doing is denying reality by just, like, waving off conflict as if "it's all just an illusion" (those are scare quotes, I'm not saying you literally said that). Anyway, you can't do that - people conflict with each other. There is more than one side.

@Thucydides

"See what else it can mean."

That's fine for artistic purposes, but for most other purposes it's better to assume that a person is trying to communicate something specific; and that any difference between that specific thing and what the other person hears is a misunderstanding, not an epiphany.

Thucy, I agree we should try to be self-reflective, and ask whether our actions are appropriate. For war, of course, but in other aspects of policy as well.

I propose that sometimes, the answer to "is it right to go to war?" is "yes". Do you disagree, and propose that the answer is never yes?

I propose that no war should ever be defended. If you find yourself fighting on the front line, go ahead and fight for your life. I won't blame you. If you find your country being invaded, go ahead, protect your home. I wouldn't blame you. If you find yourself as a head of state embroiled in the Great Game and your generals say it's high time for a war, declare it. I wouldn't blame you. To understand all is to forgive all. War happens. But war never needed to happen, and never will.

@tendmote "there is only one side" is mumbo jumbo to you? That's too bad. It's a blindingly obvious fact to me. Can you meaningful distinguish between any two things? Can you show that any difference is not belied by a more fundamental unity? I doubt it, but go ahead and try for the sake of the thought experiment.

Last, do you think it's impossible to say something without really knowing what all it can mean? Do you think all words have concrete, specific unchanging meanings? Or, rather, would you agree with me that words are weariness, really, and never fit te circumstances they attempt to describe? Maybe this is mumbo jumbo to you too, but have you ever considered that all words are defined in terms of other words? It's a miracle in some sense that any communication or reflection of reality seems possible at all. It is at once impossible and constant. One more paradox that fills life with its mystery and meaning.

You can sigh and moan and mock, if you want, but it won't change anything about any of this. This has nothing to do with me, Thucy, and, yet, everything.

Thucy, we apparently have world views so different that such an informal discussion would be inadequate to begin to try and reconcile them. Your insistence on villainizing those who start conflicts while at the same time holding an idealistic view of a conflict free world is beyond my ability to comprehend existing within the same person's worldview.

All I will say is, words are not all defined by other words. That is incorrect. True that some may be to some extent, but if you ask what an apple is, I can show you an apple, with no other words needed.

What makes words meaningful is their reference to reality. Tracing the etymology of abstract words, when possible, shows their relation to the physical and the natural - shows, in fact, they're not so abstract after all. Metaphor, relatedly, or reading new meanings into words, is not a flight of fancy, but also a reflection of reality. Metaphor is an identification of the same processes at work throughout different domains in nature. So when I read a second meaning into Sun Tzu, I say it isn't a second meaning. There's just the one meaning.

What villainizing? Didn't you read my post above?

As to the apple, showing me an apple does not define the word apple. The physical apple and the word are not connected. There is nothing "apple" about the apple in itself. Only in our head is it an apple. Only by using other words do we delimit what it is to be an apple, and all the while the apple itself goes on simply existing.

As to war, I'll quote someone else: "war is over, if you want it."