[Catharsis.]

See, I never said that religion was the sole cause of conflict. I stated the opposite in my original post. Just that it can trigger it.

Politics, culture and religion do often overlap. A lot of the time most of the people who are from a certain culture will have the same religious views. For example, most Arabs are Muslim, and most Irish people are Catholics. There usually isn't much of a variety in political views either, especially when the vast majority of people in one country are of the same religious background.

Sarasa and Traci are right. If people didn't fight over religion, it would be something else. Still, religion is a perfect excuse. Like Sarasa stated, religion can be used to mobilise people into fighting.

BDF also had a very good point. Indoctrination by the hierarchy can be a cause of this. Even if the priest or preacher or whatever the hell he wants to call himself talks about very extreme stuff, it's likely that the people who hear it will believe it, grow up thinking it's true and possibly pass it on to their children. That can be dangerous. I never attended Mass that often, but I went to a Catholic primary school and currently attend a Catholic secondary school. When we were in primary school, we were taught pro-Catholic, God is good, praise Jebus sort of stuff all the way up, A lot of the people around me are very intolerant towards Protestants, Jews, Muslims etc now, so you can see the effect it can have.