Religious Hostility

By Rodney Stark

Stark and Corcoran have assembled remarkable facts and figures with which to assess religious hatred and terrorism around the world. Not content merely to document the extent of religious hatred and terrorism, they also to explain why it occurs and whether it can be overcome.

The world is aflame with religious hostility. Thousands of people are dying for their religion, or because of it. Churches are burned, mosques are blow up, and people are machine-gunned while they pray. Hundreds of thousands of Christians are fleeing Muslim nations – many more would join them if they had anywhere to go. In too many schools the textbook advocate killing the Jews; in too many families, daughters are honor killed on the basis of the flimsiest suspicions. Far too many governments are actively complicit in religious repression and terrorism, while too many others fail to act. Meanwhile, religious hatred flourishes; anti-Semitism, anti-Christianism, anti-Muslimism, as well as anti-Atheism.