religious riots

Recently there have been riots in southern Maharashtra. There
was some trouble with the scene depicting Shivaji killing Afzalkhan.
Somebody committed some mischief and then religious sentiments
took over. Then it was all riots, murders, damages to the property, attacks on religious places and so on.

One of my close friends messaged me on a social networking sites.
The message said things such as "Hindus, realize whats going on, if
you do not come together now then blah blah..."

We are so quick to draw conclusions. I just thought about alternate
hypotheses about how the mischief could have occured.
1. Some people thirsty of wicked social entertainment acted
as miscreants. Religion does not matter to them, only gore does.
2. BJP paid crooks to go for the mischief. After all this is
election time in Maharashtra and there is need to consolidate
Hindu vote bank.
3. Congress paid crooks. They wanted to malign BJP on the
verge of elections and consolidate their Muslim vote bank.
4. Possibly Shivsena/MNS paid the crooks.
5. It was all spontaneous. Perhaps hard to believe but there
was no political involvement.
Many other hypotheses can be formulated. But why should we wait?
We are quick to jump to conclusions. Yes, "X" religion was
guilty and "Y" religion must avenge it.

Someone once said to me that human beings in group are not much
different than a pack of dogs, let one begin barking and others
will follow. I do not know exactly but at least in religious
matters it looks to be true. Religion has such a blinding effect
on a person's mind. Perhaps this effect stems from the old maxim
of religion "don't question, just follow". When people listen to
some so-called authority speaking on religion, they just follow
it without raising even an eyebrow.

The makers of the game exploit this very fact. The real culprits
stay aside and watch the fun from outside the ring. Unfortunately
our government is such a weakling that it lacks the will to stomp
over the culprits. Perhaps the government too is one of the culprits.

Some of us were discussing few days before. A question was raised,
did we gain more or lose more because of religion. The fact that
one has to think for the answer evinces the fact that the concept
has not been entirely beneficial.

Perhaps religion helped human beings in the beginning of civlization
by giving them a set of rules. Perhaps religion will also help
humans with the end of the civilization.

(note: Of course the problems run deeper than discussed and are
more philosophical in nature)