Good point. It could be argued that religion itself kills very few whilst using a religion as an excuse for other more temporal gain is perhaps the biggest premeditated killer. Ideology is bound in such things and spreading your control over others is where the fighting the good fight / jihad etc comes into it.

You could argue I suppose that without spreading, converting and influencing the lives of people for gain, religion has no other purpose. Hence in enlightened liberal democracies such as ours, the whole idea of being told what to do and how to think is anathema. Another nice spin off is the resulting low tolerance of bigotry based on differences in general. Seeing everybody as equal works for me, works for you and even politicians see "prosperity through equality" as a vote winner.

But the past? See Dylan's "God on our side" for details....