It's simple. All religious people consider themselves to be the CHOSEN by GOD, and therefore Good. By exclusion, all others are BAD. Extending this illogic makes it easy to hate anyone different.

I think religion is itself bigoted.

Your question hits home in my family. ...my father was Pentacostal and severely racist while my mom was lily white and Methodist. ...I did not want to be like either of them. ...I rebelled from religious bigotry racism and sexism in our culture of lies that brainwashes children bribes children and I just said no to Santa boy Ishtar bunnies laying candy eggs on dogshit lawns. ...

The more religious, the more insular the person. The less empathy for the outsider. The very religious, I think, feel very alone in a hostile world. They reflect this in attitude. Also your assumption would seem to be that they should be more moral, caring and open than anyone else.

Because, being chosen by Gawd, they are "special", and you (plural "you" ) are not.

I think because its all about 'fear of the masses' when you have a world history such as the russian or french revolution etc. its sort of clear to me, that the 'haves' are going to try to keep the have nots down but will be very afraid of us because once we get going who knows what might happen? And there are more of us than there are of them - religion is a tenuous knot to tie yourself to (look at how knotty the U.S got over cuba) in England Guy Fawkes and the peasants revolt, shat a few people up.Its always about greed and trying to have more than the next person because life is inherently vulnerable and people try to beat the bank- sorry for all the mixed metaphors its how it came out of my head!

I put the religious fundamentalists into the "us v. them" group of folks who spend a lifetime trying to separate everyone else into being "them" and reserving "us" for their closest friends & relatives.

Depends on the religion.
Thai Buddhists have universal health coverage, and are kind to most races of people, although the government has a poor track record in helping immigrants.

I think that saying all people of religion are racist is a bit too sweeping. It'd be no different if you said all atheists are racist, or all agnostics, or all <insert group here> are racist. We just need to find one example that isn't and voila, whole argument blowed up!

That said, there seems to be a troubling confluence of deeply religious people, especially in the South of the US, that are racist. Worse, they don't know it. The 'confluence' I am arguing for, though, also includes a lack of science and critical thinking skills.

These people are home schooled, or schooled in a Betsy DeVoss style convent of education. Ok, that was an uncalled for ad hominem attack (I think) but the point is that I expect the teachings in most schools that are faith based are, if not anti-science, are at least fundamentalist AND are teaching creationism sorts of things, and with, I expect, admonitions like "don't you dare ask questions about this!"

Where am I going? Oh, yeah: basically, I think the racism part is not just due to religion, but to being trained that way and in no small part because they are living in an area that was not only pro-slavery but had that institution as it's backbone for a long time before change came along... and then, quite literally, fought against that change and are STILL claiming that wrong was done to their way of life (and that they will rise again)!

It's a morass. But, it's not just the fervently religious folks who are racists. It's just that the fervent in an area of misaligned education are and it skews the way we think about the rest.

It's a threat to their position if they have to be care takers. They'd rather just be takers.

I think it's because they want to belong to an exclusive club where they are the "special" ones and those who are different for whatever reason (race, socioeconomic status) can just take what's left over once they're done. It's pretty much a case of people trying to build themselves up by knocking others down. It's horrible behavior, but they have a "get out of hell free" card just because they "believe" the right thing, so they don't feel guilty about it either.