There are no "Religions of peace".....

[tackattack]

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Religion informs peoples expectations and frames their experience.  Insomuch as a religion informs some shitty expectation and frames subsequent experience in a detrimental way, it's a contributing factor to any end product of nastiness.  We could always suggest that there were other factors, but this is just a kid pointing at his friends and saying "but timmy hit him too, mom".  

Conceptually, it works the same way for any positive outcome attributable to a persons religion. 

The trouble is in isolating some positive thing unique to any religion, whereas a given religions specific shittiness is among the set of known knowns.

So, for example, any monotheist who justifies their shittiness by reference to someone else's polytheism is expressing a gripe that requires their monotheism, whereas the same monotheist laying claim to positive outcomes has the polytheists ability to produce those same outcomes to contend with.  In this, polytheism is intrinscally more inclusive than monotheism, and while there is a range of nasty and nice things shared between them, there is a range of shitty things that is solely possessed by the zealous monotheist.

Or, you know, the short version is "a history of the world since the assumption of monotheism", lol.  We kindof went off the rails in the transition from monolatry to where we are now as a product of fanatics doing what fanatics will invariably do.  In our defence, and echoing my previous statements, it's not as if there aren't powerful motivators compelling the respective monolatristic camps into the actions we've seen.

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So any dogmatic social structure is inherently divisive and destructive by the exclusivity of it's dogma? Well I believe power does corrupt so I would tend to agree with that. That's why I actually believe with part of Brian's point that a solution should be based in the individual (not societal structure) as that is where the impetus of morality, responsibility and judgement are rooted.

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I'm not trying to be pedantic, it was the "royal" he.
So using your own words we can agree that:
1. People act on their beliefs
2. People's beliefs are informed by their "experiences".
3. We observe humans doing good/bad.

So how do you inject cause into this formula? How do you relate Religion into the equation?

1. People act on their beliefs. I agree. Still does not make their beliefs fact. It merely means they believe it. 

2. People's beliefs are informed by their "experiences". BUT AGAIN see my prior posts. A dog can have a very REAL experience of barking at their reflection in the mirror and still not realize that they are really barking at themselves. Tell a kid at a Halloween party that the covered bowl of olives are human eyeballs, odds are they will believe you if young and gullible enough.

3. We observe humans doing good/bad. Yes, and we observe storms bring rain and rainbows, and also tornados and hurricanes. But you don't assign storms to Thor do you? 

I don't see cause as supernatural. I simply see nature as a collection of events that lead to an outcome without a super cognition causing it. I don't see humans caused by a super cognition anymore  than one should claim that cockroaches pray to a cockroach god.

I see religion as nothing more than a superstitious attempt to explain nature.

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I do not assign storms to Thor. I see cause as a natural mechanism similarly. I don't attribute the cause of good or evil in people as entirely supernatural either. If a person has a belief that is good stemming from their religious experience and acts to the good on that isn't that religion causing good?