If most religions are against murder why have sooo many people been killed in the name of religion?

I think the answer to this question is not obvious.

It's really a judgment call whether religion imits violence or encourages it, isn't it? And it's obvious that religion, to the extent it promotes violence, is not the only human institution to do so.

I particularly like your last sentence, "we just just ANOTHER reason to disagree and fight about difference, don't we."

I think that's probably half right, but only half.

There's a recent book out, "Demonic Males," by science writer Dale Peterson and biological anthropologist Richard Wrangham, which concludes that human men have an innate tendency to form themselves into fairly small groups, and engage in murderous violence against men in other small groups.

Engaging in disgustingly violent gang warfare like this is a violent trait humans share with chimpanzees, our close genetic cousins, according to the book.

Male chimps in groups will fight and kill male chimps in other groups, even if the victimized males all are close cousins of the conquering, successfully murderous males.

Among supposedly primitive tribes of humans, we see very a very similar pattern of violence, which anthropologists sometimes have recorded in terms of cannibalism, head hunting, etc.

Probably the basis for this behavior is "evolutionary," in the sense that it's a way in which one group of males can hope to advance the replication and diffusion of its DNA pool while suppressing the diffusion of the other group's DNA pool, according to "Demonic Males."

What Peterson and Wrangham also conclude -- but enough factual investigation, it seems to me -- is that both religion and nationalism, and also the formation of ideologically based political movements (communism, etc.) tend to create mechanisms that reduce cannibalism, head hunting, and small-scale gang warfare by incorporating small groups of humans into much larger groups.

When men who might engage in "Demonic Male" behavior are enlisted in a religious cause, or a nationalist or patriotic movement or a political movement, they are less likely to commit violence against their near neighbors, Peterson and Wrangham conclude.

But unfortunately, the "Demonic" behavior has only been displaced; it is suppressed within the group, but is now likely to break out in more virulent form thanks to new wars among different nations, religions and political movements.



This is also somewhat similar to what the famous German philosopher Hegel wrote in his rather obscure book "The Phenomenology of the Spirit."

In that book, I see Hegel talking about the experience of feeling subjectively reconciled to God (or some God equivalent), and describing how this feeling -- of being "saved," basically -- leads many individuals to become more altruistic.

But unfortunately, once you're "saved" in the Christian sense, you're more likely to feel that God has taken up residence inside your heart, and then it's not too hard to conclude that whatever your heart or your biases or your neuroses lead you to want, God must want the same thing.

What follows are wars arising from the "law of the heart," in which different groups of idealistic people with rather lofty standards of behavior towards their neighbor go to war with one another in the name of God (or some suitable modern equivalent, such as capitalism or communism, democracy, etc.)

I don't know if either Hegel or the authors of "Demonic Males" really have enough evidence to support their ideas, but both certainly acknowledge that religion can have some bloody and violent results as well as some loving & inspirational ones.

The problem, though, would seem to be with our genetic or character-based love of war and violence, not with religion per-se. Possibly the problem lies in male sexual rivalry, period.

Peters and Wrangham suggest in "Demonic Males" that the bonobos, close relatives to the chimps, have at least partly brought male violence under control through a kind of political lesbianism among the dominant females in bonobo societies.

By using lesbian sex to forge alliances with one another, and by then uniting to discourage killing among the males, the dominant female bonobos can often prevent male gang warfare, although they don't completely end male rivalry.

People are evil

No

Yes some of us can

We'll always find reasons to disagree and fight.

because the leaders who taught that did not believe in God.
They used religion to control people.

They did not know God but were pretenders

Atheists should talk!

atheist Mao Zedong 35-77 million killed

atheist Pol Pot 1 million+ killed

atheist Stalin 50 million killed

atheist Lenin 100,000 to 500,000 killed.

Because many of the so-called leaders have a wrong interpretation which they 'preach' to their people.

But really, you can't escape the alignment of politics and religion, ie that often both are interconnected, starting or fanning wars/jihads, etc.

Well it is really a human rights issue. You have the right to follow any belief system you chose when a government or group denys you that right that causes all the problems. This not only with religion but also all the other basic human rights that we enjoy and protect here in the USA. The constitution that affords us of our rights goes beyond our borders and touches every man woman and child of every nation! As our founding fathers stated “We hold these truths to be self-evident , that "All men are created equal" all men are created equal
, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness . That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,” these are rights given to us by our Creator. God has seen fit to bestow upon our nation the great honor and privilege of being the caretaker of these sacred rights. It is our duty to stand against every foe that would defraud any people from their God given rights. And we stand at the ready to reach to the far ends of the Globe to smite the head of tyranny where ever it raises it’s ugly head! In these difficult times our will is being tested, will we pay any price to defend these scared rights? Will we use any means necessary to protect these scared rights? Will we allow tyrants to extinguish the flame of liberty and trample under foot the God given rights of the helpless? When tyrants violate these rights the retribution of those violations goes far beyond vengeance or even justice. It is an issue of the preservation of these said rights. And it is not the preservation for the living but for the generations yet to come. It is therefore our God given duty to use any means necessary to preserve these God given Scared rights so that these rights shall not perish from the earth.

The people who kill or murder other for the name of religion are simply going away from their religion. That it ! If they kill others then they are no more religious.

I include atheism (Communist rule hasn't been without its own such incidences) in this as well since it is based on values & beliefs itself, & rather than putting a formal deity in command & control of life, the atheist puts himself in that seat, in effect, making himself god over his own life, on his own terms. With that in mind...

Man is fallen. Religion notwithstanding, man is fallen. We all have a sin nature. Our best attempts to meet the mark & live idealized lives can't be met because we just don't have it in us.

murdering is forbidden... but going to war in the name of religion, and declaring the war firstly, is okay.... your not murdering, you are fighting in the name of 'what u believe in', :)

There is a difference between killing and murdering, sadly most people don't realize that.