Most wide-spread religions today in their essence are very humanist.
However, there unfortunately among the elite of the religous establishments there have traditionally been power hungry despots who treat religion as an example of their superiority over other humans.
I would like to adress these points;
- Most people follow a faith because their parents did
- Most people are born into a faith
- Most people arn't puritanical extremists
- Most people don't have a burning desire to hunt down and kill the heathen, infidel, kaffir
However, there are alot of religous intellects, even those who would describe themselves as being humanist who refer to people of other faiths as "Infidels", just because they follow another religion.
Religion is used by these people with a superiority complex, "we are better more civllised advanced humans because of our understanding of religion in comparison to yours".
If we look at the major prophets, they expressed clear humanist ideals, they were not extremists, did not hate people of other faiths and their message was for humanity.
I feel the problem of religion today is that it has been hijacked by power hungry people convinced of their spiritual superiority and missing out on the true message.
The essence of major religions teaches we were all created by the creater and worship the creater.
Now, if we were all created and we all are equal, we shouldn't be condemned because we happened to be born into a family following religion a or b.
There would be more understanding if people of different religion accepted, we all believe in a creater, we have different interpretations but the main belief is a shared one.