Well in ancient times it was made to make sure that soldiers did not fear to die on the battlefield,and belief was on very high level than today.
To create some sort of oreder. Instead of muslims killing muslims, they kill and rob cristians. Thus saving energy to build a society.
Or that Gaddafi is dead, and no matter how hard we (the communist) or che (the super communist) wish it, he is never coming back.
Think of religion as a strong leash in the old days. If it didn't exist people would just kill and rob each other without any thought. Religion made people {still does} listen to their good concious. like "maybe i shoudn't kill my neighbor with all the food and instead find another way because i know god will reward me for making a good decision like that."
Makes me shiver because without religon there would be a bigger casualty for everything. On top of that they had priest running around asking generals not to fight near villages, fields {farming kind}, or churches. Some generals took the request and moved elsewhere for the battle others said "god over king but you are not god". not a real qoute hey i just made it up.
The Popes kind of encouraged the crusades you know...and the northern crusades...and the war on the Moors in Spain... Well funny thing is in 2007 the catholic church issued new sins, and one of them was causing social injustice and another was pollution. lulz.
Before the crusades there were was a campaign to stop viking invasion's from scandavia. Kings all over went on a recruitment spree. Later you had a bunch of warriors some of which deserted the army and went on to become bandits. They accumalated sin and money. The church said well we can't stop them from killing so what if we diverted that anger and hate to Jerusleam. The crusades were born as well as jihads. In the first crusade the clerics and pope {dont know who the pope was at the time} probally won brownie points from kings because all the bandits and brigands went to cleanse their sin by fighting for god. It helped foster comedic relations between kings/soldiers during the crusades. People died but religion was invented by humans. Besides Muslims grew to do the same thing "no more shite or sunni not turk or egyptian nor moor let's drive out the crusaders boys" other people "yeagh lets do it!" these days small impoverished nations like in central america would benifit from uniting too dont you think?
Not being religious doesn't mean you can't figure out how to be a decent human being. Before religion, humans didn't kill each other for the hell of it, and they won't if religion is ever gone. Not as much casualties? "Hey you guys, I know you're working peacefully in your fields and all, but God kinda wants us to kill those Muslims, you know. Wanna come? Ha, who am I kidding? You have no choice. Here's a sword, I'm sure you'll finance the rest.". "Wait, you don't follow the same Christian beliefs as us? On the stake with you! Oh, and I'll set you on fire for good measure.". I'm sure that prevented millions and millions of deaths.
First of all the first part is entirely right and I'm not taking 3man75's side, in fact it's quite clear he doesn't usually know what he is talking about. Now on to my criticism of this, "Before religion, humans didn't kill each other for the hell of it", are you sure? Were you there? Insanity has always existed and certain insane people are willing enough to kill someone for the hell of it. There are plenty of reasons as to why someone would kill someone else beyond religion and religion being gone will not stop that. That's religious extremism, which is very harmful and should be eliminated. However only the harmful parts of religion should, not religion entirely.