Religion: Peace Maker or War Maker?
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Rev. Habib Badr presented a lecture on Monday 20th of February 2017 at the Alumni Club of American University of Beirut (AUB) This lecture was organized by AUB Alumni Association (AAA) and Karaz w Laimoon group.
The lecture was on a controversial issue of religion: Peacemaker or War maker? Dr. Badr after defining what religion is and the different types of world religion as missionary (Christianity, Islam and Buddhism) and non-missionary (Druze Faith, Judaism, Sikhism), and how they hold on "The Truth", he said that in principle violence is not compatible with religion unless violence is prescribed within a certain religion (such as physical punishment to transgressors of the precepts of the religion, or execution of apostates). Since religion is practiced by so-called religious people, and these people cannot be always trusted, and they are subjected to psychological, social, economic, political culture, so religion maybe used or abused.
The issue here is whether religion can become a "violence maker", said Dr. Badr, and violence is not restricted to war. In this sense, unfortunately, religion is indeed a cause of violence and war. So religion can be either a peace maker or a conflict maker. Thus the new title should have been: Religion: Peacemaker and War maker.
