[jfengel]

Reformation was itself really about long-standing conflicts between countries/nationalities. Few people really care whether they are saved through faith alone or not, just as East and West weren't really having wars over whether "filioque" belongs in the Nicene Creed.

The Internet does give ordinary people the opportunity to be mean to each other on a daily basis rather than having wars. I'm genuinely not sure that's an improvement, since at least people would think twice before going into combat. The level of desiring to harass each other seems roughly constant.

[philwelch]

The reformation broke out in the middle of the hundreds of tiny German microstates that comprised the "Holy Roman Empire". In fact that's the only way it could have broken out; power was diffused among hundreds of princes and the mechanisms of central control weren't strong enough to stop it. That's why it happened when and where it did. Nationalism and politics didn't enter into it for the better part of a century.