Looking at history from the beginning of written records,

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

15. My question is, would people have behaved better if there had never been any such thing as

organized religion? That's kind of a trick question because some kinds of organized religions would inevitably have developed as a way for people to try to understand the natural world at a time when there was no science or technological means to explain it. People would have wondered why there is rain, why does the sun come up, what happens to people when they die; and lacking a way to know these things would have concluded there was some other force that controlled these things. Thus gods with various attributes and powers were "invented," and the way they were dealt with became organized and ritualized because that's what people do.

Gods became associated with particular tribes or regions. Before Judaism became truly monotheistic, Yahweh wasn't the God, but merely the one particular god that protected the Israelites and which they, in turn, worshipped. The association of and worship of a god of a region or tribe was only an aspect of ongoing wars and power struggles among groups. People are animals, and like any other animal they will fight to acquire and protect the assets and territories they need for survival. And tribes believed they needed the help of their god to ensure they would prevail in their struggles against other tribes and their gods.

According to the theologian Karen Armstrong in her book The Great Transformation, the simultaneous development of the world's religions and philosophies (Confucianism and Taoism in China, Hinduism and Buddhism in India, Jewish monotheism in Israel, and philosophical rationalism in Greece) during the so-called axial age (about 900-200 BCE) is a direct result of and reaction to the violence and chaos, both physical and spiritual, of past civilizations. During that period the major religions, aware of the constant violence and wars occurring in their civilizations, intentionally developed philosophies and creeds emphasizing altruism and compassion, and all came up some version of the Golden Rule. One might argue, then, that the teachings of these religions actually might have resulted in less chaos and violence rather than more.

Of course, all that theoretical altruism didn't prevent wars in the long term because (a) people are still animals who instinctively strive for power in order to control assets and territories, and (b) the dominant religion of a country or territory became so intertwined with the governing power as to be an effective arm of the state, with the result that ostensibly religious wars weren't about doctrine at all, but about acquiring power over another territory. When the Catholic Church became the dominant religion before the Reformation, its wars and abuses were really about protecting the power of the Church and the monarchs associated with it. Heresy was viewed primarily as a challenge to the power of both the Church and the state - effectively a form of sedition.

Which is to say, I think, that to claim organized religion is a primary cause of war and violence is an oversimplification. Religion has been used as an excuse for doing terrible things, of course; but if there were no religion people would still do terrible things. They'd just use different excuses.