I've noticed, both here on A|N and elsewhere, what I consider to be an error of thinking. It happens often enough that I feel it important to not only point out but correct. This error of thinking is confusing religion for religious persons.
This error is asserting that religion is violent or (not) peaceful. It is a rather odd claim, since religion is an idea, and violence is an action. Ideas can not act; ideas merely exist. It is true that ideas can lead an individual to certain action, including violence, but this is a quite different thing. One may even have violent thought that derives from the idea, but the idea itself can not be violent.
Language includes many short-cuts that enable people to express an idea in fewer words but still get the essential meaning across. It may be that in many such instances the claim that "Religion is violent" or "Religion is peaceful" is such a short-cut (to wit: "Religious thought and practice encourages violence" and "Religious thought and practice encourages peacefulness"), but I think it more so a case of lazy thinking: the claim is what it is, means exactly what it states, and is not a short-cut.
My objection relates to agency and accountability. Religion, as an idea, can have no agency — can not act — and can not be held accountable. It is people who have agency and can be held accountable for the expression of that agency. By asserting that religion itself is violent or peaceful or whatever other quality one may assign one is not making a proper attribution. In a sense, it forgives religious people behaving badly because it is the religion itself that is the agent. But it is not. Religious people may well behave badly (or goodly) because of the ideas they have that inform their behaviour, but it is their behaviour nonetheless, and it is they who must be held to account.
By ascribing the agency to the idea, one is engaging in what is essentially superstitious thinking, as superstitious thinking ascribes agency to things that can have no agency.