Existence, Ethics & Morality

            
             Does religion bring more conflict than harmony? This question does not have one single answer, but instead has many opinions formed about it. Depending on the time period and position in the world looked at, Religion has caused a lot of unnecessary grief to many people in one period, while helping people in another. Take the comparison of the Roman Empire and the 16th -17th Century, during the time of the Romans the Christians were persecuted for their beliefs, because they were different, while all of the different gods that the Romans had were being constantly forced upon the next conquest, meaning all the people who wouldn't follow their Gods were punished. Compare this with Britain in the 16th - 17th centuries. People were Christians then, and because the rest of their life was so awful, what with all of the disease and the decay that was happening, their life was very depressing and so they were grateful for the relief that believing in the next world brought to them, and believing also gave the people hope. The different time periods and different locations in the world has affected religion as a whole, meaning that depending on what you look at a different opinion will form about it.
             Holy war has played a big part in the causing of grief in the world. One of the biggest examples of this are the crusades, which were military expeditions undertaken by Western European Christians beginning in 1095, usually at the request of the pope, to recover Jerusalem and the other places of pilgrimage in Palestine (now in Israel and Palestine) known to Christians as the Holy Land from Muslim control. Crusaders did not particularly look forward to crusading with its threat of disease, long overland marches, and death in battle far from home. Families left behind in Europe often had to struggle to manage farms and properties for long periods. This was all suffering that didn't need to happen, but did purely because of Religion.