Is religion still relevant in modern society?

[GameOver22]

huaxiong90 said:

GameOver22 said:

The Iraq War actually has little, if anything at all, to do with religion. Remove religion from the equation and the US would still have invaded Iraq. The big issue was WMDs and the nature of Hussein's regime. It was not a religious war but a defensive one, at least in justification.

Also, removing religion from the picture is hardly a reasonable position. The same could be said of many other things- we could just as well eliminate free will, human nature, national boundaries, sovereignty and achieve the same goal. If you could remove religion and eliminate war, this hardly means that religion causes war. It just means that religion is necessary for war. This is hardly true (Iraq example), but my point is that religion is no more a cause of war than the other things I mentioned.

It had nothing to do with religion, mostly true. But the underlined is so wrong.

I don't like Saddam Hussein...but the situation in Iraq is a whole lot worse ever since the war.

You might have to explain that one to me. I haven't read anyhting that makes me think that the US went to war for any other reason than to defend itself or its neighbors. The goal was to eliminate a threat that possessed WMDs and was willing to use them. The only other goal was regime change, hence, why I said the other main justification for going to war was the nature of Hussein's regime.

As I said, this is the justification the US gave for going to war. The claims of WMDs turned out to be false, but that doesn't change the fact of why the US went to war. To simplify, the main reasons the US went to war was:

1. Defense

2. Regime Change (Democratization)

Now, whether or not these justifications turned out to be true, worthy of achieving, or successful is a whole different debate, and it doesn't change the initial justification for going to war.