Religion joins other causes from greed, to power, to ideology, to nationalism, and so many other reasons for humans' horrible treatment of other creatures and the planet.

Dogmatic belief and devotion to any partisan cause leads inevitably to conflict. Those causes include such things as economic theories and social movements as well as religious ideologies and nationalism. Modern history shows that atheists are fully capable of making war and conducting massacres in support of their particular dogmatic ideologies.

We tend to divide ourselves into groups depending on who believes what. The irony is that no one really knows the complete ultimate truth about any issue. All the groups have some good points and all of them are partly false. Whatever any of them is pushing is incomplete and superficial.

I don’t think that demonizing some of the groups is going to accomplish anything. Demonizing religion in general is a futile exercise, leading only to further conflict, because the religious impulse is deeply imbedded in the human psyche, and in its pure form serves noble purposes.

If we want harmony we need humility along with respect for the opinions of others.

Religion is a cancer on the human race.

Interestingly the most terrible massacre of the RC ever performed is missed out again here.
The extermination of the Cathars in the The Albigensian Crusade 1208 to 1244, where over 100,000 Cathars and sympathisers were systematically slaughtered burned, in the worlds first example of human genocide.
The worst example being the Lanquedoc destruction of the town of Béziers where every man woman and child was slaughtered without mercy on 22nd of July 1209 (St. Mary Magdalene's day” for refusing to give up 200 Cathar preachers living peacefully in the town 3000 souls.
This incident provided the inquisitors with their moto, for when asked by the crusader knights how to tell Cathars from Christians the Abbot in charge declared
"Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius"

Kill them all, God will know his own

When the Cathars were all dead, the inquisition remained and turned their attention to other "Heretics", then witches and finally to Jews and Muslims.
All in the name of their loving god.

I am going to order that book. Thanks for the posting.