# Would a different justification have made the Iraq war more credible?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-different-justification-have-made-the-iraq-war-more-credible/266079>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [September 25, 2004, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-different-justification-have-made-the-iraq-war-more-credible/266079 "2004-09-25T21:23:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 7

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**Author:** ![Abe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f1d935/32.png) [@Abe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abe)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-different-justification-have-made-the-iraq-war-more-credible/266079/121 "2004-10-20T05:42:22Z")

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> [@Jojo](#):
>
> So, because every single ideology is abused, does that therefore mean that all ideologies are equal (in your mind)?

No, of course not, but I do not concerns myself with questions on which ideology is qualitatively better, because of the irrelevance of such an assesment, particularly by one displaying the bias you do. I simply do not jump to the conclusion of thinking that “hey, these guys did something bad and used their religion to justify it, therefore their religion must be bad!”

I have explained all this several times already, I rather wonder what it is you don’t understand.

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**Author:** ![Abe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f1d935/32.png) [@Abe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abe)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2004, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-a-different-justification-have-made-the-iraq-war-more-credible/266079/122 "2004-10-20T06:04:01Z")

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> [@Jojo](#):
>
> Yeah, I think I can see a disagreement between us rearing it’s ugly head on the horizon. See, I don’t think Moses was the first person to think up the idea that killing people is generally bad. I think the ten commandments (and in fact all religious injunctions) merely reflect what people think anyway.

You have a point here, which you wrote after I wrote my last response. Moses wasn’t necessarily the first, though his work seems to have had a greater impact than any before or since. However I have shown how all the earliest laws all had in common one thing: divine order or sanction. My point is that since Moses (and to a lesser degree other codifiers I cited) there has been a steady current in the West on these matters, to the point that every single legal system to this day still upholds at least three Mosaic commandments (kill, steal, adultery) and often a host of other religiously influenced laws (e.g., homosexuality, sodomy, prostitution, etc.) that have been eliminated only in more progressive societies and cultures.

Which brings us to:

> [@](#):
>
> Morality doesn’t come from religion. Religion comes from morality.

One has to wonder. I won’t judge on this, I will limit myself to saying that the two appear to be too closely entwined (at least historically speaking) to claim precedence of one over the other. Chicken and egg.

Certainly I _believe_ that moral systems are essential to group survival and prosperity, and I can see how these necessities might have been prehistorically codified by myth and religion. However moral systems vary considerably, as do religions, and this becomes pretty murky territory.

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