The many narratives of alliances between religion and politics demand a philosophical determination. This determination should achieve several things: on the one hand, it should confirm the moral content of religious reason and, on the other, it should remind us of the unreserved questioning of philosophy that leads to the critique of the religious.
Religion plays a special role in the history of war. Its power is undeniable, irritating, disturbing. The presentations here attempt to work out the ambivalence of religion in the context of the Old War, but violence should not have the last word. Rather, the considerations fall into two larger parts. The first part resembles a polemic. Religion leads to hardening of positions, to extreme forms of enmity. The extent to which this negative force of the religious complex affects conflicts in the present day will be shown here. The Middle East conflict provides the backdrop on which the negative traces of violence motivated by religion emerge.
The second part is intricately linked to the first. It is not disputed that religion can have negative effects. However, the function that religion can fulfil in people’s lives will be demonstrated. These functions will be described here as alliances. The existential-philosophical question of the authentic meaning of religion is the underlying issue. Religion is not power or domination, but the authentic expression of the non-disposable conditions of meaning of our lives.
