We have to be clear about the difference between what some religious people choose to do, and what God wants us to do. It’s true that religion often aggravates things when they do go wrong, and it can easily be perverted by unscrupulous leaders – but other good things can be easily perverted too (patriotism, justice or love, for example). But there are always factors other than religion behind all the evils attributed to religion:  greed, lust for power, despair or fear. One could go as far as to say that religious people who commit atrocities in the name of God are not religious at all – for they have totally lost sight of what God is calling us to do and substituted their own prejudices for God’s will.