In another forum, someone was going off on "religion" as some universal evil for which men would be well served to stamp from existence. Forgetting the practical problems associated with this ill-considered idea, I would address the logical and philosophical issues.
Blaming religion, or any other non-substantive entity such as "government" or "the state" for the evils of the human world is a bad move because it is tantamount to excusing the individuals who are the actual culprits of vile, wicked, and dishonorable acts. Such people, and these are common as dirt, use their personal versions of whatever beliefs they claim for themselves as the basis and, perhaps more significantly, the justification of, or even excuse for their actions, however atrocious. This has been done countlessly over our recorded history, a most notable and comparatively recent example being those Germans who, during their trials at Nürnberg, claimed that they were "only following orders". One of the greatest blows to freedom, and a grand opportunity missed, was our collective failure to hold the Soviets and communist Chinese to account and pay for the decades of murder, oppression, robbery, disease, and leaden misery each had foisted upon their own people, but were sadly and tragically allowed to skate when their reigns of terror were called out for what they were and, at least ostensibly in one case, came to ends.
Worse still are the cases of both America and Europe, each of which know better, yet are so hopelessly corrupted that their respective people knowingly and willfully decline to bring the hangman's noose to bear upon those so richly deserving that fate, we humans being our own worst enemies. This is especially infuriating in the face of all the claims of a moral high ground, not to mention those of being "free" people. The absurdity sits heavily as concrete on the mind.
Blaming "belief" is not unlike calling organically-intact people "stupid" and excoriating them on that basis, in that it implicitly excuses the bad choices made by those not suffering the faults of actual, clinical stupidity. One cannot hold a truly stupid man responsible for what he does, precisely because he is too stupid to understand the nature of his actions. But the intact man who willfully and knowingly chooses to act pursuant to some idiocy that produces an evil result may be justly held to account for what they have done. This is especially the case for those in "government", for they occupy positions of Special Trust such that when they violate that confidence and fail to make full amends with interest, they should be punished most harshly for both the crimes they have committed against those to whom they swore their oaths of good faith and competent service, and to serve as the most ghastly warnings to all others who presume to bear the mantle of the Public Trust.
Let us be clear: religious doctrine in sé does nothing. It is one's choice to subscribe to a set of beliefs, its attendant values, and to behave in accord with those dictates that is the problem when evil results. It is a problem of the individual choice of action, and not one of the notions and commandments themselves. So long as I fail to act, it matters no whit how wildly stupid or dangerous a notion I may choose to entertain. Such specifications have no effect whatsoever if people ignore them, much like the commands of a dictator, military commander, mayor, cop, or evil stepmother.
