Does Religion Cause Violence?

 Religion has faced a harsh accusation from atheists for years.  A lot of them claim that religion causes violence and war because it teaches people to kill in the name of their God, whichever one it may be.  What they don't realize is that morality transcends religion and every other institution.  If you are a naturally violent person, you will do violent things, with or without a social institution like religion.  If a child does all the things a preacher tells them to, then their conscience (or lack thereof) should be put in question and not the preacher himself. 

Other institutions that are said to cause violence are television and video games, but these claims are unsound for the same reason.  The atheists that only accuse religion of causing violence don't usually want it compared with these because it's only religion they want to bring down.  If it sounds silly to them that a medium such as television could cause violence, then they might want to consider that others see their postulate the same way. 

The parallel with guns is true as well.  They aren't things that cause people to shoot others- people with the intent to harm others are.  For example: as a child I loved playing Duke Nukem, but you never saw me launching grenades and missiles at people I didn't like.  My brother and my friends liked to play shooter games as well, but none of them ever committed extreme violence.  That's because we had valuable things called consciences- what those who hurt others seem to be lacking. 

You could say that nothing influences morality more than religion does, but it seems to me that a child's parents would have the largest influence on their ethics and not a source outside the family.  Children often imitate the actions of their parents, even when they believe the action isn't good.  For example: religion might tell you that stealing is wrong, but if a child sees a parent doing it out of hypocrisy, the child is more likely to ignore the religious teaching and mimic the parent. 

Not only that, but it could be said that most of the people using violence in the name of God have either misinterpreted their religious doctrine or listened to somebody else who did (depending on the religion).  Let's face it, the Bible can be interpreted any way you like.  If you choose to interpret it as a manifesto of war, then it's more of a product of your nature and not the tenets of the Bible itself. 

What tends to get ignored by people claiming that religion causes war is that it teaches far more valuable lessons in morality than bad ones.  It seems suspicious that someone would accuse religion of causing violence while ignoring all the beneficial things it would do for society if they truly believed its words had such a powerful influence.  Things such as compassion, forgiveness, and charity are usually preached in the major religions, so why have they been ignored by these people?  If the words of religion were strong enough to cause a war, you'd have no choice but to accept that it also generates the more divine intentions of its literature as well.  From a logical standpoint there isn't any way around this, and atheists are usually logical people.  So they think.