Empirical Perspectives on Religion and Violence

Abstract

The ‘religion as cause’ argument implies that religious faiths are more inherently prone to violence than ideologies that are secular. Following an evaluation of the scientific literature on religion and violence, we argue that wherever evidence links specific aspects of religion with aggression and violence, these aspects are not unique to religion. Rather, these aspects are religious variants of more general psychological processes. Further, there are numerous aspects of religion that buffer against aggression and violence among its adherents. The most distinct feature of religion, supernaturalism, is not often the focus of religion and violence researchers. Despite this, the paucity of research that has been conducted on this key feature suggests that it is associated with reduced aggression and violence. There appears very little support for the notion that there is something uniquely religious that causes violence among followers.