Some people believe that religions are the main cause of all wars in human history, but that is, according to my experience, a gross exaggeration. It is well known that aggression, rage and a need to dominate are not invention of human thought and ideology, but in fact atavistic characteristics inherited from our more animalistic stages of evolution. Unfortunately these aggressive tendencies can be amplified greatly by an ability of human mind to idealise and manipulate, hence a saying that man often behaves worse than an animal. History witnesses our struggle to use our mind in constructive rather than destructive purpose and this struggle is far from over - we are nowhere near to truly democratic and free society.

The will for power is recognised as the main human motivator, and when we add to it human vanity and greed, then it is not too hard to recognise the major cause of all wars. The lust for blood was needed to be rationalised or justified as human intellect was developing in order to ease our conscience. Shouldn't be fair to say that people were looking for any reason to subdue each other and conquer by war for the sake of territory, ambition, goods, money, ideology, pride and sheer last for destruction? It is of course right to say that religions might give somebody a reason to make wars. But is this really a reason or an excuse? Human nature cannot be ignored when explaining the events of history. Aren’t we all proud of our country, race, nation, sex, house, car, computer etc? We constantly idealise that with which we identify ourselves. When somebody is different, we might see him as a threat only because he does not support our identifications, only because his existence shakes our paradigm or theory of reality. And if we are too rigid, non-creative in our identifications we might react with defiance, aggression and violence towards those who question our view of ourselves even if so-called ‘them’ are actually friendly.

The world can be seen as black and white; religion is bad while science is good, my country is great while foreigners are inferior, my religion is right others are false and so on. But such views are again result of blind idealisation and biased arbitrariness, hence in themselves have a seed of division and war. The war starts in human mind and that is where it must stop. And it can stop only through practice of brotherhood, love and creativity.