Religion: The Scapegoat of Conflicts, Part IV: The Extremists

INDEX
Part I: Introduction
Part II: The Axial Age Religions
Part III: Religion as a Casus Belli
Part IV: The Extremists
Part V: Conclusion

The last point to be discussed is about the fact that most religious conflicts, including the cases used in the previous parts, were started by extremists. Extremism is started by the the most fanatic, left-wing members of a belief, who want to impose their ways to others, due to them thinking that they are the rightest ones. The extremists are usually the most conservative believers of an ideology. These conservatives are inflexible, their minds less open to and unchanged by new ideas and other perspectives.

The paradoxical problem is that the conservatives should be the most loyal followers of an idea, so that they should've been the ones most opposed to violence, as it does not match the core tenets of a religion described before. It seems that this is the 'byproduct' of beliefs being one of the most important human natures, sensitive and almost impossible to be changed. They were blinded by their own belief that they alone are right and everyone else are infidels who must submit or be cast away. Evidently, this means that even the most loyal followers are not the ones that understand their belief's teachings completely.

The rebellion in Sri Lanka was made worse by Buddhist extremists who persecute Hindus, further increasing the death toll of the conflict. That case is only one example of extremist groups in Buddhism, widely considered to be a peaceful religion. There are also cases of persecution of Islamic followers in Myanmar by other extremists. In each case, these radicals use the difference in religion as a sort of casus belli, using violence to 'protect' their religion. Once more, returning to the original intent of these beliefs to bring about peace, violence done by these extremists already violate their own central beliefs.

Thus, as all religions promote peace, the fanatics in the religion already stray from their own religion's way of thinking, their desire to preserve their belief merely a clouded justification for violence. Thus, it could be concluded that conflict started by extremists is not caused by the faulty system of a the religion itself, rather the fanatical followers who do not fully understand and enliven their religions' sacred teachings. They themselves consider themselves the most righteous, forgetting the cause of their righteousness. At the end, due to their incompetence, religion is blamed for causing conflict which it never promoted.