The thing that's puzzling to me is that religion is supposed to have such a profound effect on society, but is utterly innocent of involvement in anything bad that happens. Granted it's very hard to pin historical events on specific root causes.
Sure religion is used as an excuse to start wars but wouldn't the fact that it works means people are willing to kill because of it?
The Irish Troubles
Muslim/Hindu conflict in India
Church-run residential schools in Canada and the US
ISIS
The suicide rate among LGBT youth
Rohingya genocide
The Taliban
Israeli/Palestinian conflict
The destruction of indigenous cultures by missionaries
9/11
- should I start on the 19th century?
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The idea that religion is such a big source of suffering throughout all of our history is one I stopped believing once I took a closer look at the actual nature of war, particulary how a country's elite is moving closer to war and how "religious" said elite actually is.
IMO the amounts of blood shed over millenia would have been the same under atheists.
And because today most of us are Atheists/Agnostics, and because most of these millenias' rulers weren't, it is our "agnostic hindsight" which follies us into believing that this suffering was all just caused by religion.