ABSTRACT
In the Western world, especially in Europe, religion has oen been accused of being the main root of violence in our world. Closely connected to this accusation is a master narrative that it was the European Wars of Religion that led to the secular state enabling people to live in peace and tolerate each other. is master narrative identies religion with violence whereas the secular state is seen as the tool for peace towards which the modern world seems to be heading. A quote from Richard Dawkins’s book e God Delusion illustrates the widely shared identication of religion with violence referring also to the European wars of religions by mentioning the Gunpowder Plot (1605) a failed assassination attempt against King James I of England by English Catholics:
Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers’, no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’, no ‘honour killings’ … Imagine no Taliban to blow up ancient statues, no public beheadings of blasphemers, no ogging of female skin for the crime of showing an inch of it.1
