Wk 4 Journal

Introduction

The persistent spread of extremist violence throughout the world is a huge alarm and concern today. This is especially because the violence is largely connected with religion. For instance, the mass shootings in Orlando, Florida, which targeted people of a certain sexual orientation was associated with religious sentiments (Gopin, 1997). The shootings caused 49 deaths and 53 injuries, the worst mass shooting in the US. It has also been observed that religious motivated violence by Muslims and Boko Haram have affected both Christians and Muslims in West African countries. As such, religiously motivated violence has been a common feature in the past histories and also current realities in major religions such as Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, as well as other minor religions. The violence takes many different forms such as weapons, hate speech, or other kinds of violence attacks (Basedau, Pfeiffer and Vüllers, 2014). Religion has also been associated with hatred, attacks and oppression against certain communities or groups of people. As such, it is important to explore this topic in depth in order to unearth the history of religious conflict and violence since there is no much research which has provided proper account of such conflicts. This paper will add to the available research on religiously-motivated violence, by exploring causes and origin religious conflict and violence, its impacts, as well as the way forward for peace to prevail.

References:

Basedau, M. and Schaefer-Kehnert, J. (2018). Religious discrimination and religious armed conflict in sub-Saharan Africa: an obvious relationship?. Religion, State and Society, 47(1), pp.30-47.