One last thing.

If you think that the Imperial Japanese Army, Mao, Stalin and the Khumer Rouge were bad - can you imagine how much worse they would have been if they had been motivated by some totalitaraian monotheistic ideology. It is quite likely that those related conflicts would still be going on in 2007 with a lot more death and destruction.

TR you imagine it as you do because it suits your narrow bigoted mindset post-Dawkins indoctrination. No one is still fighting the crusades but, old cultural animosities are forever being inflamed by politicians and demagogues who don't mind brutalising and murdering their own in hope for power. And the Crusades were not really about religion but, the principle players fighting for control of that particular nexus of the silk road were of different cultures and religions. Lots of wealth at stake not souls.
Your anti religious rants are poorly studied and the way you have intellectually cuddled up to Dawkins and the other anti-religious is more a supplicants kowtow than any persons of faith. For every instance of war you can blame on religion I can name ten that lay at the feet of the secular/political and show millions on millions of deaths. The Osama bin Laden's of this world are not religion and are doing nothing for religion. Their nasty little people hoping to wrestle some smidgen of power over others before their last heart beat, and they have no concern for the nature or number of hearts they stop to hold such power. They are truly pathetic creatures lost to any God or even to your Dawkins that you worship. The Nazi Party, the Imperial Japanese Army, Mao, Stalin and the Khmer Rouge were motivated by some totalitarian monotheistic ideology. Political, cultural or racial superiority based on one God-like being, themselves individually or in the name of nationhood. They were all doing the Dawkins long before Dawkins, using cosmology, evolution, natural selection and philosophies as justification.

I suggest you read something more than Dawkins and his fellow God-haters. Your assumption that the Irish were fighting over religion was proof that you need other reading materials. The Irish Rebellion was anti-English, anti- feudalism, and Ireland for the Irish. Religion was coincidental to everything else. Just like it has been in many another condition of war. Coincidences don't make the rule nor make the reasoning behind events. Try looking deeper than your expectations.

That Islam is just like any other religion and, the wave of Muslim terrorism afflicting the West is due to a few extremist is a misconception and myth propagated by well-intentioned but misled and misguided (often Western) people.

Muslims are not only targeting Western countries but are also killing Thai Buddhists in south Thailand, the Hindus in Kashmir and non-Muslims in parts of Russia, beheading Christians in Indonesia and killing Catholics and mutilating them in the Philippines.

“The western world would be wise to recognize the realities of Islam, a religion laid down in writing over a millennium ago with violence and oppression at its heart.” This is written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali an ex-Muslim.
http://www.islam-watch.org/AyanHirsi/My-View-of-Islam.htm

And also read how the Muslims are taking over Sweden, ‘Radical-left Islam-lovers and the Death of Sweden’
http://www.islam-watch.org/Fjordman/Left-Islam-lovers-and-Death-of-Sweden.htm

PERICLES

the point about linking 'Monotheism' to 'violence' can only be based on the VALUES connected with the Deity.

If the values are 'violent' and form a basic charter of belief, then you would expect the followers of such a deity to be violent.

On the other hand.. (this is reallllly simple.. remember that finger of yours ?) IF...the values of that Deity are 'peaceful'

-Blessed are the meek....
-Blessed are the peacemakers....
-Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness....
-My kingdom is not 'of' this world.
-As the Father sent me, so I send you....
-By this shall all men know you are my disciples..that you have love, one for another.

....then you would expect the followers also to be peaceful, or at least long suffering.

There isn't much more that needs to be said here because if you don't get '2+2=4' which I'm sure you can.. then it would be sad.

Please have a look at the links provided by Philip Tang..specially the one about Malmo, and see the stories of intimidation of Immigration related judges in Sweden... sure.. we can't verify them from here, but it does seem to reflect a pattern. "fight them".... do I need say more ?

aqvarivs, you couldn't be more wrong if you tried.

>>The Irish Rebellion was anti-English, anti- feudalism, and Ireland for the Irish. Religion was coincidental to everything else<<

Try checking these out before you make a complete fool of yourself. Ooops, too late.

"Irish Rebellion (1798), an uprising of Irish Roman Catholics seeking parliamentary reform and complete Catholic emancipation" Encyclopaedia Britannica http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9042781/Irish-Rebellion

If you want to go further back in history:

"The Irish Uprising of 1641 was a long-term result of the "Plantation" policy of Tudor and Stuart monarchs under which Ireland was colonised by Protestant settlers from England and Scotland... Ireland was predominantly Roman Catholic, so the plantations brought religious conflict as well as territorial disputes." http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/glossary/irish-uprising-1641.htm

"The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began as an attempted coup d'état by Irish Catholic gentry, but rapidly degenerated into bloody intercommunal violence between native Irish Catholics and English and Scottish Protestant settlers, starting a conflict known as the Irish Confederate Wars." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Rebellion_of_1641

Or more recently:

"The Ulster Volunteer Force, opposed to Home Rule, mainly Protestant and dedicated to preserving the status quo or take Ulster out of the Empire, flourished in the north. In the south the Irish Volunteers, mainly Catholic, supporting Home Rule and ultimately Irish independence, were set up". Excerpt from About.com: Ireland for Visitors http://goireland.about.com/od/historyculture/a/easter1916.htm

Or right up to date:

"With Catholic hopes raised on one side and unionist fears on the other, the situation quickly threatened to boil over. Violence finally erupted in 1966 following the twin 50th anniversaries of the Battle of the Somme and the Easter Rising - touchstones for Protestant and Catholic communities respectively. Rioting and disorder was followed in May and June by the murders of two Catholics and a Protestant by a 'loyalist' terror group called the Ulster Volunteer Force."

Excerpt from "Northern Ireland - The Troubles, 1963 to 1985"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/recent/troubles/the_troubles_article_01.shtml

But please, don't let facts get in the way of a truly lame story.

Yes Pericles, the Protestant British invaded and took administrative control from a predominately Catholic Irish people. Ipso facto it is all about religion. Had the British been Catholic I suppose, following your view, not a word or act would have been said or done against the marginalisation of Irish society and eradication of self-government. Hmmm. Silly me. Imagine a Catholic country being undermined by a Protestant country and not becoming a matter at street level of one religion against the other. How stupid of me not to have narrowed my intellectual focus to see nothing germane to the direct and abusive segregation of the people, theft of land, and imposed serfdom on the Irish peoples by a foreign English power and the talking all property and wealth transferable out of the hands of the Irish and away to England. Why, why couldn't I just see it was all about religion. I'm such a fool. Thank you Pericles. You've opened or rather closed my eyes to the real issues and abuses faced by the Irish during their occupation by the English.