Yes, and governments and developers of military technology are also usually supported by unthinking industrial, corporate, and political zealots of every kind too. ;-D Heh! Birds of a feather flock together, don't they?

Religion has been used by every unscrupulous government in history (except *** the officially atheistic unscrupulous ones, that is) to cover the real purposes of conquest which are: to take over someone else's land and steal valuable things that don't belong to you.

***The officially atheist unscrupulous governments I refer to would include most of the Communist regimes since the Russian Revolution, namely: the Bolshevikes under Lenin, the Stalinists, the Red Chinese, and the Khymer Rouge.....all of whom made much capital out of opposing religion on principle.) Of these, very few have equalled their record in causing the deaths of innocent people.

Unscrupulous governments can be just as dangerous when they oppose religion as when they espouse it. Two sides of the same ugly coin, in fact...the one is as bad as the other.

This seems to escape those who only want to see evil on one side of the coin. Why? Well, it doesn't suit their favorite argument, so they'd rather not focus on it. They don't find it emotionally satisfying to be even-handed in their criticism.