system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Wars are political, no exceptions. Religion is commonly used as a scapegoat for waging war.

After studying history, I have come to the conclusion that wars are political, and that war-wagers will use religion as a facade to hide political motives.  For example, the Crusades.  These so called "Holy Wars"  were just pushes by the Byzantine Empire to gain back land taken over by the Caliphates.  They paid the Pope and Crusaders as mercenaries to do their work, as their army was fairly weak due to their decline in that time period.  This is the reason that the 4th Crusade did not actually attack the Caliphates that much.  The Crusaders were unhappy that they were not getting paid as the Byzantine Empire had promised, so they sacked Constantinople and demanded payment.  So, what are your thoughts?
gpt
I think this is a very poor way to look at history. It takes modern attitudes on relgion and applies them to historical figures.

Do you believe that Pope Urban II believed in God? If you do then relgion has to play a part in the Crusades. This is the pope, if he believes in God, in a very religious period in history do you think that his religion played no part in his decision to call for a Crusade? A crusade in the name of God? To retake the Holy Land? 

These ideas certainly had other factors as well, i'm not arguing that it was only religion. But that in a period of history where religion was everywhere you can't remove it from war.