OVER the ages, there has been an inextricable link between public piety and violence. It seems that the conviction that they have a monopoly on some universal truth gives believers the right to impose their religion on others, by the sword if necessary.

This zeal to spread their brand of the word has led to more bloodshed in human history than any other factor. Armed by a conviction that their faith is superior to any other, believers have slaughtered ‘infidels’ in their millions with guiltless gusto. Virtually every religion, at various points in its expansion, has imbued its followers with a virtual licence to kill.

And yet, these same belief systems universally contain strong injunctions against murder, and advocate peace and harmony. So how do we explain this wide gap between theory and practice, and between vision and reality? Clearly, any religious text (or any other document, for that matter) can be interpreted in any way the reader wishes.

For instance, while Jesus taught us to ‘turn the other cheek’ if slapped, the Old Testament encourages Jews, and later, Christians, to seek vengeance under the precept of ‘an eye for an eye.’ So how should the true believer act in the face of such contradictory advice? Obviously, the more muscular approach has guided Christians more often than the gentler, other-worldly teaching spread by Christ.

Consider, for instance, this demand in The Times of London following the Indian Mutiny of 1857: “...every tree and gable-end in the place should have its burden in the shape of a mutineer’s carcass”. British troops took this advice literally, and Lieutenant Kendall Coghill, quoted by Niall Ferguson in his masterly book ‘Empire’, wrote at the time: ‘We burnt every village and hanged all the villagers who had treated our fugitives badly until every tree was covered with scoundrels hanging from every branch.’ According to Ferguson, one huge banyan tree which still stands in Kanpur (or Cawnpore as it was then known) ‘was festooned with 150 corpses’.

Presumably, perpetrators of such enormous crimes soothe their conscience by the knowledge that their faith grants them immunity from God’s laws as well as man-made ones. Indeed, for true believers it’s a win-win situation: if they survive their ghastly misdeeds, they will notch up brownie points with their maker, and if they die, their place in heaven is assured. Basking in this sense of moral invincibility, the faithful have wrought havoc around the world, and continue to do so. The Victorians were convinced not only that it was their duty to spread the Christian faith, but it was a moral obligation for them to carry the banner of commerce, liberty and ‘civilization’ to all the nations they had colonized.

This sanctimonious confidence that their value system was superior to all others finds a deep resonance in American foreign policy after the Second World War. Utterly convinced that the ‘American Way’ was manifestly better than all others, they have attempted to teach the rest of us the benefits of democracy, capitalism and McDonald’s. But all too often, people have unreasonably clung to their traditions, and have had to be taught the error of their ways by sharp lessons imparted at the end of cruise missiles. Indeed, no other nation in history has been involved in so many wars over so short a period.

Behind this reforming zeal is a very unsophisticated version of evangelical Christianity that informs the majority of Americans now. Indeed, this is the ‘moral majority’ behind Bush and his agenda. After the failure of socialism as a viable alternative, capitalism is now propagating itself through a number of international organizations and treaties. But American values still need steel and cordite to spread.

Other belief systems also have their advocates of forceful conversion. A large number of Muslims, convinced that their faith is the best, not only proselytize in foreign countries, but also actively seek to destroy the social order. To their mind, they are showing heathens the path to salvation by forcing them to embrace their version of the true faith. However, they show a chink in their armour of total conviction by not permitting followers of other faiths to preach in most Muslim countries.

Currently, then, the two militant faiths to engage in global battle for human souls are militant versions of Islam and Christianity. While loudly proclaiming that their creeds are peaceful and tolerant, their exponents seldom display these virtues. This confrontation goes back centuries, and has manifested itself in different ways. And while the Vatican, and much of Europe, no longer strives to export the faith by force, the banner has been passed on to hard-right, American evangelists. While they do not crudely seek to convert the world by the sword and the Bible, their influence in Washington is now enormous.

Extremist Muslims are not in control of either military or economic power, and hence resort to terrorism to further their agenda. But terrorism is a weapon of the weak. In terms of numbers, only a tiny minority of Muslims supports the kind of mayhem suicide bombers are wreaking in the West. However, if their aim is to make converts to their faith, they are doing the very opposite. More and more non-Muslims across the world are becoming convinced that Islam is in reality a doctrine of violence.

Today, as down the ages, trouble follows believers convinced that their faith is the best, and that it is their moral duty to convert the rest of the world to this self-evident truth. The problem is that other people are equally convinced of the truth of their gospel. When these beliefs clash, as they have so often done, bloodshed is the inevitable result.

Alas, man-made dogmas have been just as uncaring of human life as have divine faiths. More people have been killed in the name of communism and national socialism in the last century than for any other cause. But both kinds of beliefs generate the same kind of moral superiority and in spire similar sorts of immunity from human and spiritual laws and constraints as do revealed religions.

So, as long as we make it our business to show others the path to spiritual or economic salvation — by force, if necessary — we are destined to colour our history in blood.