I should have been more clear. When I say weaponized I meant to manipulate societies and control peoples traditions, compliance with governments and less to do with wars, crusades, jihads and the like. This seems to fluctuate throughout history but then again I am not an expert on this topic. Dominance of the patriarchy vs the sacred feminine and such... I am probably still being too vague.
What do you think religion is exactly? At least organized religion.
You can draw lines of causation back and forth between those two (or three) big things pretty much arbitrarily depending on the specific circumstances.
Every major religion in recorded history, and all the ones I’m aware of from prehistory, have some history of violence. Even Buddhism.
This is one of those ‘false ideal past’ things.