Thinking Again - Part III

God Breeds Violence and Intolerance . . . is the third point which Armstrong thinks has been too readily accepted.

Certainly, it is easy to go through the recitation of wars and acts of atrocity that have been laid at the feet of religion - think Crusades, 9/11, religious suicide bombers, Muslim-Hindu violence in India, Protestant-Catholic violence in Ireland, the Inquisition, et al - and conclude that to be religious leads to violent acts. But, as Karen Armstrong puts it:
No, humans do. For Hitchens in God Is Not Great, religion is inherently “violent … intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism and bigotry”; even so-called moderates are guilty by association. Yet it is not God or religion but violence itself -- inherent in human nature -- that breeds violence. As a species, we survived by killing and eating other animals; we also murder our own kind. So pervasive is this violence that it leaks into most scriptures, though these aggressive passages have always been balanced and held in check by other texts that promote a compassionate ethic based on the Golden Rule: Treat others as you would like them to treat you. Despite manifest failings over the centuries, this has remained the orthodox position.
In claiming that God is the source of all human cruelty, Hitchens and Dawkins ignore some of the darker facets of modern secular society, which has been spectacularly violent because our technology has enabled us to kill people on an unprecedented scale.

So, human beings may well be innately violent - nature red in tooth and claw - and that tendency may well be held in check by the power of religion. What do you think?