Let’s break this down mathematically.

X=√ EVIL

E=2.7182...
V=Roman numeral 5
I=Roman numeral 1
L=Roman numeral 50

X=√ 2.7182 x 5 x 1 x 50 = 26.06...

The root of evil is approximately 26.

26, you bastard!!

Human Nature. Religion is just the perfection of controlling people's fear of the unknown and manipulating it for money and control.

Evil is the root of religion.

A tool of evil ~

No Bible believer could deny it.

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.

[biblegateway.com]

I think that it's more likely that religion is a symptom of evil rather than the root of it. It's like swelling at the site of an injury. The body tries to respond to a problem but the response can, itself, be a problem. Societies have responded to evil by trying to set up a specific set of morals & rules (religion). But this can lead to new problems of evil.
Of course, I don't think this is a whole picture of religion & its place in society but it describes an aspect of the subject.

Perhaps not, but is often used as an excuse to perpetuate evil.

Yep.

A wholly owned subsidiary of the military-industrial-entertainment complex.

Just an tool some people use to justify or ignore or spread it.

Religion is a consequence of a biology evolved to recognize patterns and avoid false negatives even at a cost of false positives.
Once the patterns are structured and have shown to be efficient (of course our god is true, we grew more than the neighbor group and defeated them), it starts to aggregate more and more rules, bureaucracy and become a structured religion/government. That is the best that a monkey with anxiety in its early civilizatory states can do.
Of course as the monkey progress and society became more complex and the problems to deal with changed, those false patterns and the biases starts to hold the progress and to oppress the monkeys that are not in control of it. The society becomes less stable and efficient and is substituted by another one that could adapt and review its false patterns. Like the change in power between Europe and middle east that are dancing and changing who is the power every half millennium or so since the start of their population.

So religion is just a bunch of false (or not verified true at least) patterns that are systematized and with changes of time start to hold society back.
Always keep in mind that our natural state is fighting for survival, sick, in the brink of subnutrition, living in societies of a few dozen recognizable family members. Any improvement over this cames from social organization and until a few centuries ago all this social organization came from religion.

Evil, imho, in that it suppresses human sociological advancement and scientific research ,etc, it also purveys ideologies of divisiveness, ethnic vilification, misogyny, hatred towards those who either follow a different system of belief or have no belief what-so-ever, etc,etc.
It also seeks to restrict personal development, personal rights ( the right of a woman to choose what happens to HER body for example), it not only seeks to have influence/control in Legitimate Governments but actually EXERTS control as we are ALL aware.
It has, historically, been the causative factor in more Deaths than the last 2 World Wars put together and still continues to do so unabated.

It can be used for good also bad depending on what verse u read . The Bible contradicts itself so much it all comes down to what verse one reads and also how it’s interpreted. Personally I don’t know why people need to read a fictional book to want to do good thangs.

no. just a tool.

g

Nah. Gotta put that squarely at the foot of "humans". Of course humans created religion, and it has, in it's many incarnations, certainly committed more than it's fair share of evil.

Agreed. Religion is fundamentally an expression of humankind's narcissism. We create God's that love us and support us as we do evil selfish things.

I'm glad that a simple question, created such an intelligent conversation! You guys are awesome!!

Maybe, maybe not. But it does try to define some of it.

Greed beats out anything else, including religion, for that distinction.

One of them.