Um DEFINETELY yes!
Think of Christianity- Crusades, 100 years war,
Then: Taiping Rebellion, Islamic jihadism list goes on and on...

Oh, I agreed with you, I just wanted to make a cool analogy and blame it on animals. Especially those goats. 

Nope, never.

Religion has been used as an excuse for war, and a scapegoat. But war is only ever started for 3 reasons, power, control and resources (land).

There isn't one religion whose teachings advocate starting wars in order to achieve the aims that the religious teachings intend. People have observed that Muhammad said Islam would be spread by the sword. And it's true, he did say that, and it happened. However if you actually read what he said he's actually making a predicition, not a commandment. He didn't tell his followers to go out and pillage all non-Muslim lands and force them to convert to Islam. He just new that the state of the world over the coming centuries meant that Islam would meet with violent opposition necessitating wars to be fought, and I guess he was predicting that the Islamic armies would mostly be victorious and hence they would spread the influence of Islam as a result. That's not to say many Islamic leaders didn't abuse and mis-use Muhammad's prediciton as justification for expansionist wars (in order to gain power, control and resources).

The question you need to ask in order to lay any blame for war on religion is whether you think there would be more, less or about the same amount of war throughout history if there was no religion.

Given the fundamental causes of war have nothing to do with religion (see above), and religious teachings have always advocated peace and tolerance of other people, I'd say it's impossible to rationally claim that a history free from religion would have been a more peaceful history than the one we've got. Ergo religion is not to blame.

Wars aren't fought for, but in the name of God. Of course there are other reasons, but few rationales can approach religion in it's capacity to make the slaughter of other human beings acceptable.

And yes binary solo, there would have been a hell of a lot less war without the fundamental belief that your side is comprised of chosen people who will ascend to a glorious afterlife, and the other side is a race of hethen heretics bent on destroying the world your god made for you.

I'm very anti-clerical as I've said before, but I do think religion has meant some great things for this world and our advancement. When new and bigger structures started to come up like empires that comprised people of different culture and different ethnic groups they needed something to bind those people, so the empire would remain stable for a decent period of time. Religion was the best way to do that. 

Braudel has written some interesting stuff about what civilizations are. Religion(culture) was the most important aspect of a civilization. Take that away and the empire/civilization collapses. 

If you don't know Braudel's theory I could always explain it, or you could just google it.

The only insidious cancer being spread around here is the utter hatred that you are spewing from your post. I hope you understand that you're no better than the very religions you are berating.

Furthermore, "religion" will never be completely eradicated; that is wishful thinking. Try debating with less hate and more diplomacy, and you may end up making a valid point.

I don't deny that religion has aided in the cohesion of empires, but an Empire is hardly a good example of how religion HASN'T been a source of warfare. If anything,  that's one of the reason's it has been such an effective tool of War. I would also say that empiric cohesion is far different from societal advancement. There's a name for a civilization that is experiencing it's religions zenith: The Dark Ages. 

If we're to believe that religion isn't a catalyst, if not cause of war, we have to answer this question.

Would 19 people hijack planes and fly them in to buildings if they didn't believe they would go to a wonderful afterlife as a result of their horrific, suicidal slaughter?

For some yes...like WWII...amiright!?

yes

War without religion is like a car without much fuel : it won't go very far and might not even start.

Still, fuel isn't as faulty as the zealot driving and the lambish passengers.