That's a nice hypothesis but it breaks down when you historically look at just how many people were killed in the name of religiuos jihads, crusades, witch tria

That's a nice hypothesis but it breaks down when you historically look at just how many people were killed in the name of religiuos jihads, crusades, witch trials (including all the individual people killed for rather benign reasons but against religious doctrine). The religious are just as guilty of using fear to kill others. I will give you that there are surely some who can say fear of gods kept them from killing but in fairness surely there are some who were set free from those gods and realized they didn't have to persecute others just because a religious doctrine says, even if their sympathies said otherwise to the doctrine.