Monotheism as punching bag

The uptick in killing in the many decades long civil war in Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon, south of India) reminds me of how often you hear how monotheistic religions cause so much violence. For example, Peter Watson, the author of Ideas: A History of Thought and Invention, From Fire to Freud, when asked to name history's worst idea, responded in the New York Times:

"Without question, ethical monotheism. The idea of one true god. The idea that our life and ethical conduct on earth determines how we will go in the next world. This has been responsible for most of the wars and bigotry in history."

Maybe Mr. Watson will tell us how Genghis Khan was actually a closet monotheist. (Although this Unitarian-Universalist tract "Genghis Khan as a Religious Liberal?" makes the Mighty Man-Slayer sound like a precursor of Unitarianism.)

Here's the War Nerd on the Sri Lanka civil war:

"The players here are the Sinhalese, who are maybe two-thirds of the population, and the Tamils, who are the other third. The Sinhalese hang out in the South and West of the island and the Tamils stick to the northeast. The Sinhalese are Buddhists, the Tamils are Hindus... That's 20 years of war. Something like 60,000 dead and a lot more hurt, blinded or maimed."

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer