ABSTRACT
It is a commonly held view that ‘religion’ has a particular association with violence. Consider, however, a few salient facts and statistics about the contemporary world in which we live. In 2005 between 62 to 65 per cent of the world’s total military budget was spent by five ostensibly ‘secular’ nation-states (the USA, the UK, France, Japan and China).1 Of these five states, one in particular-the United States of America-has a military budget that accounts for almost half of the total global spending on the military (47 per cent in 2004). This is almost 10 times the amount spent by the next biggest spenders (the United Kingdom and France, both on 5 per cent). According to proposed spending plans for 2007, the US government will spend $1.2 billion a day, that is almost $14,000 per second, on its military budget.
