The "Religious Wars" (owned, operated, organized and started by my relatives in Late Medieval France) ended with the Edict of Nantes which established ~ for probably the first time in human history ~ with a mandate for religious toleration.
They decided it was better to call each other names than to burn out towns, cities, farm fields, orchards, shipyards, and all sorts of things.
There followed a fairly decent period of time. Then came the Thirty Years War. It had a religious element in it. That ended with the Peace of Westphalia.
The modern "nation state" arose out of the standards established in that series of treaties. At the same time both Protestants and Catholics were strongly encouraged by all the parties and powers in Europe to buck up and take it like a man when somebody called names ~ and that's been pretty much the way it's been ever since.
I think it's a great idea, and I'm sure that a few weeks of the alternative you'd agree too!
BTW, the Orthodox didn't sign on not having been part of the altercation! And neither did the Moslems. This is instructive ~ our worst ideological conflicts since the end of WWII have involved the Russians (Orthodox) and now Islamofascism (certainly Moslem influenced).
Neither party in those conflicts pursued resolution after the manner imagined in the Peace of Westphalia.
Probably time to get those people signed on.
How about 2010?
Let’s let bygones be bygones and talk about today on FR.
I just got off a doozy of a thread where some FReeper called me every name in the book because I didn’t agree with her that Jesus was the same person as an infant as He was when He was on the cross and that calling ones mother “woman” can be a sign of respect (as we Poles call our mothers Baba).
She even told me that Baba means crone. Nice.