Imagine

Someone once said that there were “no atheists in foxholes.” When facing danger and death, everyone is prone to be a believer.
Given the overwhelming history of religious strife throughout the ages, one has to wonder whether the man who made that quip about atheists and foxholes ever considered the very real possibility that there might be fewer foxholes with more atheists.
Consider the Pope’s recent visit to the Middle East. Pundits hailed this historic visit as a symbol of hope and reconciliation. The Pope’s visit to Jerusalem, some claimed, brought a very real hope for peace in the region: for peace between the Islamic Palestinians and the Jews of Israel.
But to paraphrase President Ronald W. Reagan on big government, more religion is not the solution; it’s the problem. We don’t need more religion to create peace and prosperity in the world today; we desperately need less of it. Haven’t we had enough of religious fanaticism over the years?
Indeed, religion has been killing, maiming, butchering and slaughtering for centuries. It has done so throughout the world. In Northern Ireland, Catholics have killed, raped, and maimed Protestants–and Protestants have committed the same crimes against Catholics. In Spain, during the Spanish Inquisition, Catholics have slaughtered innocent Jews. In Nazi Germany, Christians tortured, robbed, raped, and mass murdered millions of Jews. During the Catholic Crusades, Moslems were murdered en masse. For the past 50 years, in the Middle East, Islamic Palestinians and Jewish Israelis have been at perpetual war.
And right now, in the area President Clinton has characterized as the most dangerous place in the world, Hindu and Moslem (India and Pakistan) stand ready to unleash nuclear annihilation on the Asian mainland.
Make no mistake about it, historically, there have been more true believers in foxholes vis-à-vis atheists. Atheists generally want nothing to do with it. Atheists, for the most part, merely want to be left alone. They have no desire to die for Allah, or to quickly enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. Atheists, as a whole, are probably very peaceful people.
If the Arabs were atheists, and if the Israelis were also atheists, would they likely be engaged in constant warfare for each of the past 50 years?
Political scientists have long noted that liberal democracies tend to be more peaceful political entities. That is, a democratic country is not very likely to go to war against another democratic country.
But democracy itself is largely a secular human construct, divorced from the “Divine Right of Kings” or the “Mandate from Heaven” doctrines which preceded it. Democracies may also tend to be less religious, more secular. Hence, it might not be entirely unreasonable to conclude that less religion might actually lead to more peace, prosperity,
and freedom.