What's wrong with religion is that it has always enabled people like...

[GliderGuider]

56. That's much better, thanks.

I agree that religion has served as a convenient hook for social division in all the examples you mention. It's fascinating to me that in western nations that have a state religion, such as the UK and Norway, there is little overt religious influence on the political process,while in the beacon of constitutional church-state separation - the USA - there is so much. There seems to be more at work there than simply religion, though in some places like the Middle East that's about all there is.

IMO this reflects the human tendency to divide people into in-groups and out-groups, and religion is one simple and deeply-rooted tool for that. Other issues have served as well - tribal origins (e.g. Hutu/Tutsi), economic ideology (socialist/capitalist), social class etc. - but religion has always been an easy identifier. My only caution would be not to let your concern with the evils of religion blind you to the many other ways people have found to demonize their fellow man.

I think that religion is fairly innocuous as long as it is not imposed on others, and plays no role in social governance. As long as those two caveats are met, I see no reason not to let people believe anything they wish. Keeping religion out of politics requires vigilance, but in many places no more vigilance than needs to be given to other divisive issues like class, ethnicity or economic philosophy. You've clearly identified cases where this is not so, however. And the more that religion forms part of the cultural fabric (like in the ME, Northern Ireland and the USA) the greater its potential for incursion into the political arena.