The Violence Myth Why Secular Societies Should Reexamine Violence

Religious violence is often presented as a distinct, more dangerous category of violence—one that flows from absolutist beliefs, irrational passions and primordial hatreds. Humanists have sometimes accepted this framing, opposing themselves to “religious fanaticism” in the name of rational peace. Yet this dichotomy is deeply misleading: Violence labeled “religious” is typically co-produced by multiple institutional spheres—polity, economy, law, kinship—as well as religion and its narratives. A humanist analysis committed to clear thinking and equal concern for all persons cannot afford to ignore these institutional entanglements. From this perspective, the “myth of religious violence,” as described by William Cavanaugh, is not merely a conceptual error; it is a moral and political problem. It legitimates the secular nation-state as rational and peacemaking, while casting religious others—often Muslims—as uniquely prone to irrational violence. A humanist ethics grounded in universal dignity should resist this asymmetry, subjecting both “religious” and “secular” violence to the same critical scrutiny.

Consider for a moment that when a bomb hits a mosque, a synagogue or a church, people often call it “religious violence.” When the same bomb comes from a state military, it is more likely to be called strategy, security or defense. That difference matters. It shapes what the public sees, what it excuses and who gets blamed.

For humanists, this should be problematic. If humanism is committed to reason, evidence and the equal dignity of persons, then it cannot accept a story that treats religious violence as uniquely barbaric while making state violence seem normal or necessary. The phrase “religious violence” often hides more than it explains. Violence that is labeled religious usually emerges through a dense network of institutions: states, militaries, legal regimes, economic interests, media systems, kinship structures, as well as religious actors and symbols.

The war in Gaza, especially the 2024-2025 Rafah offensive, makes this problem concrete. Rafah became a test case not only for military strategy but also for the way policy and media narratives shape public understanding of civilian harm. The point is not that religion is irrelevant to the conflict. The point is that religion alone cannot explain the violence, its escalation or the frameworks used to justify it.

Secular Innocence

William Cavanaugh has argued that “religious violence” often works as a myth: a powerful story that separates a rational, peace-loving secular West from irrational, violent religious others. In this telling, religion is where violence comes from, while states and secular institutions appear protective, defensive or humanitarian.

As Cavanaugh admits, that is a convenient story, but not a reliable one. Humanist thought depends on critical scrutiny, not inherited binaries. If secular states describe their own violence as necessary while describing the violence of others as fanatical, then “religious violence” becomes less an analysis than an ersatz sorting device. It allows some harms to look tragic but justified, and others to look barbaric by definition.

That should make humanists uneasy. The real danger is not only that religion gets blamed too often. It is that the secular gets too much moral credit.

What Humanism Asks

The American Humanist Association describes humanism as a life stance grounded in responsibility, ethical action and the greater good of humanity. Its commitments emphasize empathy, critical thinking, social justice, global responsibility and peace. None of that fits comfortably with the idea that “our” violence is cleaner than “theirs.”

If humanism takes critical inquiry seriously, then humanists have to question religious doctrines and secular ideologies alike (including the national myths of the western world). If humanism takes human dignity seriously, then every victim of violence matters equally, whether the harm is justified in the name of a god, the nation, security or progress.

That means humanism has a double task. Humanists should criticize religious justifications for cruelty, exclusion and authoritarianism. But they also need to examine governments, corporations and secular movements that produce or excuse violence. Otherwise, humanism risks becoming just another way of saying our side is right.

Gaza and Rafah

The Gaza war offers a strong contemporary example of why this distinction matters. Public discussion of the conflict often emphasizes religious identity, with attention to Jewish, Muslim and sometimes Christian narratives. Religion is visible, and at times highly visible. But the central drivers of violence in Gaza are not exhausted by religion. U.S. military aid, diplomatic protection, legal justifications and media framing all shape the conflict’s course and meaning.

Rafah is especially revealing. By the time major Israeli operations expanded into Rafah, the city had become one of the main refuge zones for displaced Palestinians. That made the offensive a humanitarian crisis as well as a military operation. Large numbers of civilians were concentrated in a precarious and overburdened space, so any escalation carried obvious and extreme risk.

What is striking is how often the offensive was framed in terms of military necessity. Coverage and official statements emphasized pressure on Hamas, hostage recovery and strategic objectives. That language can make force (violence) sound unavoidable and at times, even necessary. It can also minimize the human cost of striking an area already burdened by displacement and collapse.

For humanists, the question is simple: What does that framing leave out? When violence in Rafah is narrated mainly through security language, the civilian population can become a backdrop to military action. That is not just a reporting problem. It is a moral one.

U.S. Policy Matters

Rafah also shows why U.S. policy cannot be left out of the story. The conflict did not happen in isolation. U.S. military assistance, diplomatic support and repeated defenses of Israeli actions all helped shape the conditions under which the offensive continued. Human rights reporting and policy criticism have pointed to a gap between stated concern for civilian protection and the practical consequences of continued support.

This is where the myth of religious violence becomes especially limiting. If the public story focuses too narrowly on religion, the role of state power fades into the background. But the state is not neutral here. It helps define which forms of violence seem legitimate, which criticisms are acceptable, and which harms are treated as unfortunate but necessary.

That should trouble humanists. It is not consistent to defend human dignity while ignoring the institutions that make mass civilian harm more likely (or even more acceptable). It is not consistent to demand accountability from nonstate actors while treating state violence as an exception. A serious humanist analysis has to apply the same standard to all forms of power.

Media and Moral Distance

The media dimension matters too. News coverage often relies on official sources and familiar narrative frames, which means violence is not only reported but interpreted through institutional habits. In the Rafah case, that often meant more attention to military aims, diplomatic calculations, and tactical significance than to displacement and civilian vulnerability. Media studies of the conflict have noted patterns of asymmetry in how suffering is described and visualized.

That asymmetry shapes public conscience. If a conflict is routinely framed through the language of strategy, then civilian deaths can come to seem like regrettable side effects (collateral damage) rather than central facts. Humanist criticism should resist that kind of moral distance.

Rafah is therefore more than a place. It is a test of whether we can still see civilian suffering clearly when it is wrapped in the vocabulary of necessity. Humanism should insist that we can.

Religion, but not Religion Alone

None of this means religion is irrelevant. Religious identity, scriptural interpretation and sacred language can all shape how actors understand conflict and justify action. But religion and violence are compatible, not identical, and violence is neither essential to nor exclusive to religion (Eller, 2022). That point matters because it keeps us from making religion carry the whole explanatory burden.

The deeper issue is causation and mis-aligned attribution. Violence in Gaza cannot be understood by identifying religious motivations alone. It must also be analyzed through the structures that sustain blockade, military capability, legal justification and diplomatic insulation. Rafah shows this especially well because the offensive there was not simply a battle. It was a concentrated expression of institutional power applied to a densely populated and already devastated space.

That broader view helps humanists avoid a false choice. The real choice is not between blaming religion and excusing everything else. It is between shallow explanation and serious explanation. Humanism should choose the latter.

A Better Humanism

A more mature humanism would retire the phrase “religious violence” as a complete explanation and replace it with a more careful account of co-constituted violence. That means asking how states, militaries, economies, legal systems, media and religious communities interact in the production of harm. It also means asking how public narratives distribute blame and innocence.

Rafah offers a powerful example because it shows the limits of framing violence primarily through religion. It shows how policy enables force. It shows how media narratives can normalize civilian suffering. And it shows why humanism has to be more than a critique of belief. It has to be a critique of the systems and institutions that make violence seem ordinary.

If humanism means anything in public life, it must mean this: Every human life counts, whether the violence against it is justified in the name of a god, the nation, security or strategy. That does not excuse religious harm. It does not excuse state harm either. And it leaves humanists with a clear responsibility: to keep questioning the stories that make violence look acceptable.

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References

American Humanist Association. (n.d.). Humanism and its aspirations: Humanist manifesto III, a successor to the Humanist Manifesto of 1933. https://americanhumanist.org/what-is-humanism/manifesto3/

American Humanist Association. (n.d.). The ten commitments. https://americanhumanistcenterforeducation.org/ten-commitments/

Cavanaugh, W. T. (2009). The myth of religious violence: Secular ideology and the roots of modern conflict. Oxford University Press.

Eller, J. D. (2022). Introducing anthropology of religion: Culture to the ultimate (3rd ed.). Routledge. (Original work published 2007)

Human Rights Watch. (2024, February 7). How to end America’s hypocrisy on Gaza. https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/08/how-end-americas-hypocrisy-gaza