religion is just an aspect of our lives with same emotions.

Most people invest in religion due to the deep uncertainty in their minds; sometimes pre-determined biases in their brains impede rational thinking. Most of the faithful and followers’ minds are messy, confused and ambiguous mirroring the disillusions and contractions of this prejudiced world, causing flawed history wars over national identity.
Religion is just another aspect of life and is therefore determined by the same set of emotions that we undergo, while dealing with the external world. These aspects of our experience are – joy, disappointment, frustration, fear, hate, love and greed etc. But there is a fundamental difference between religion and real life. While some of these emotions can be positive in our lives, it may be harmful for the success of religion.
This explains why we have intolerance, hatred and clashes with other religions and societies. Defenders of their faith scream blasphemy at the drop of a hat and reach for their swords. Religions have to be modified to appeal to man’s higher nature, and not demand conformity to a particular sect, which is part of change and evolution.
Otherwise religion will remain just another tool in the hands of unscrupulous leaders to sway their followers using a moral high ground to wage holy wars, terrorism and fatwa’s.
As Swami Vivekananda, summed it up succinctly in his address at the congress of religions, after his initial feelings of admiration for religions had waned due to; the brutality, the narrow fanaticism, the monumental ignorance, the crushing incomprehension, of all the believers. He was bitter at the religious hypocrisy practiced by the two largest faiths, which could not succeed even after resorting to the sword! If religion is used only to promote its own ideologies and areas of interest, then it will self implode due to lack of empathy, humility, tolerance and the truth is sacred no more. –Vinay