If World War III is to be caused by religion, the main culprit is Group Polarisation which we allowed

I see group polarisation (e.g. groupthink) in progress among religious people of some of the major faiths (which is a danger to world peace). This is facilitated even more with an emphasis of unity that created the illusion of no opposing view that made people even more extreme. Sure, you can feedback but there are gatekeepers to control information flow making the condition unable to prevent group polarisation. Many people are not educated in social psychology and have no idea the seriousness of group polarisation thinking it doesn't warrant the existence of 'whistle blowers'. And when you feedback, people up there may not think it is a problem and prevented the information from flowing down. People trust people up there to have the sufficient knowledge to make right judgement and decision so making the illusion of unity even stronger.

SO WHAT IS GROUP POLARISATION?

It is a tendency to make more extreme decisions than individuals' initial plan as a result of being a member of a group. For more details about it, you can read it here. One of it is groupthink phenomenon where people start to make irrational decisions (they do not see themselves as irrational as already 'blinded').

HOW SERIOUS IS GROUPTHINK?

May be you may think it is nothing too serious. But real problems do exist. One famous one I have learned as an example in social psychology module during my undergraduate is the Bay of Pigs Invasion that led to 4,500 killed or wounded. If we are not careful and have policies or practices that encourage the development of conditions for groupthink, we can really see World War III. Social groups that are highly collective and strong centralised control by authority in nature have such capacity.

CONDITIONS FOR GROUPTHINK

Maybe you won't believe it will lead to groupthink. Just see the conditions for it:

1) Desire for harmony or conformity, i.e. group cohesiveness (which harmony is good IF it does not lead to groupthink)

2) Situational context (e.g. panic due to message spreading that requires urgency in dealing with it and urgency can lead people to be less rational)

3) Faulty group structure/dynamic (e.g. how decisions are made which can lead to the illusion of invulnerability, especially if one group thinks "God is for us")

OTHER PSYCHOLOGICAL ERRORS AT PLAY MAKING THINGS WORSE

Message (which lead to both panic and illusion of invulnerability) becomes more convincing when people subject themselves to confirmation bias and randomness error (often used as an argument as sign from God). When initial few subjected themselves to these two, the population of this group grows and then Bandwagon effect comes in. To threaten the message, some 'experts' abuse (intentionally or unintentionally) their status to influence others even if they are not experts of the subject matter. People tend not to differentiate whether or not they are expert of the subject matter if they already subjected themselves to confirmation bias or a desire not to deviate from the group so conform (which creates the illusion of conformity).

MORE DETAILS ON THE PSYCHOLOGICAL ERRORS INVOLVED

1) Confirmation bias: This is the tendency to be selective in information that support your initial beliefs. Even if you try to search for counter-arguments so to be more objective, you will discount all those counter-argument quickly and will accept those that support your initial beliefs quickly. One behaviour of this is to spend hours searching for supportive arguments while minutes for counter-arguments.

2) Randomness Error: Trying to create meaning out of random events, linking them. Sure, I believe sometimes it is really what it is but how can we be sure it is? I often hear people reason "It must be God, how can it be such coincident?" Unfortunately, sometimes it really is an coincident hence there is such thing as 'Randomness Error' found in psychology as based on research.

3) Bandwagon effect: This is the tendency to believe (or do) things because many others also believe (or do) them. Trying to reason "many people are saying the same thing, it must be true" showing that we have not learned the lesson that the earth is not flat despite many people once said it is.

4) Believing the 'expert': You see problems like atheists believing in certain famous atheist scientist's claims on theology on the sole ground that he is a famous top-notch scientist. He knows little about theology. It is not his subject matter. This, religious people can be quick to address but slow to address that they also fall into the same problem of believing too quick in claims of 'experts' (e.g. religious scientists who are in their camp) even though they do not have expertise in that subject matter. Making worse, people are not trained in research hence do not know how to read and critically evaluate the research methodology involved whether it is what it is claimed.

Some may not agree that I post this as it may disrupt 'unity' but I feel an obligation given that I have knowledge of a problem serious enough to warrant me to 'whistle blow'. However, despite my concern, I feel I have no power to do anything to prevent it other than making it known the psychological problems involved. Sometimes I feel like giving up and forsake everything, don't care any more since what I do seems futile due to many constraints.