Originally Posted by Ardy
Originally Posted by Ezekiel
Please tell me where I denied saying that economics was the main reason. I have always maintained that point. What I didn't say is that it is the only reason.
Surely you see the difference.

Zeke
there is a very large difference between saying (for example) Catholic priests sometimes molest children, or saying that Catholic preists almost always molest children.

And, for the purpose of clarity, there is a lot of difference between saying that religion is one of the main causes of all wars.... and saying that you define religion to be so expansive in its impact on nearly everything that therefore it is true that religion is the main cause of all wars.

And it is even a further leap of illogic to observe that the Catholic Church is the largest and richest organaized religion... and therefore the cause of almost all wars

Right, so, I said it a hundred times and here goes 101 - I think that economics is almost always the cause of war.
I did not define economics, we have been, for all of this thread, assuming a definition that involves economic gain.
That sounds like a fair assumption.
I never said that because the U.S. is the richest country it is the cause of all wars. It would actually be quite the opposite: the U.S. became the richest country because of interventions and wars (not only because of that and not all of which were started by the U.S., so please let's not go there again). And further, interventions and wars help to maintain it as the richest country.
Ardy, from my point of view, anyway you slice it economics will be a major factor, and if not 100% of the time, a large percentage of the time it will be the main underlying cause of war.
There is no reason to complicate this anymore than it already is.
I have also said that I don't believe this can be proved, but I do believe the facts substantiate the idea.

"The liberals can understand everything but people who don't understand them."
Lenny Bruce

"The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month."
Dostoevsky