Would the world be a better place without religion.

[xSilverPhinx]

It would be great to see the back of religion but the depressing truth is that humans can be nasty, brutal and avaricious little bastards, and if they can't demonise another group through religion, they'll do it through race, ethnicity, class, gender, soccer teams or whatever else makes them 'different'.  But I guess at least they wouldn't be able to claim divine backing for their actions.

I agree with this. There's a difference between in-group/out-group tribal behaviour and thinking you have divine backing for whatever it is you want to do. If god's on your side, who's to stop you? makes it more than slightly worse than the same tribal tendencies channelled towards soccer teams, or race or whatever.