Religion - is the Qu'ran Evil?

I have been following the massive debate on the Dilbert Blog concerning religion.

One of the main arguing points seems to be the largely excessive use of violence in some parts of the texts (Even though this contradicts peaceful parts of the Qu'ran)

Personally I dont think religion is the cause of violence, thats just down to the wankers, which you get in any society. Neither do I think the scriptures themselves are evil, the bible tells us to goto war against none christians, but you dont see christians cutting off heads. the plain fact of the matter is that religious extremism doesnt work in todays society, indeed the bible has had much of its extreme chapters removed.

In most cases people have the common sense to stick to the peaceful parts of religion, and ideologism, but you must remember that most people who want to use ideologism to change the world tend to use the point of a gun to do so (Hitler etc). The difference being Hitler wanted the perfect race, tall blonde blue eyed etc, where as religious extremists want their religion to be predomonant.

As a non belever in religion I can see how most religions follow a pattern of entice and control, this was used by most sections of society throughout history, entice people with peace, a better way of life and heaven, then once the people believe, and you have your own personal army, convert through force not peace, kill disbelievers and invade their countries. The invading part being christianity, muslim seems to be more about defending your country and religion by force. IN the same vein though the crusades were based on smimilar rules to current terrorists. They took passages made to defend faith and convert and used them to rape and pillage (similar to Mohammed, who raped, plundered and allowed is troops to break the law of Islam)

In all religions the people who come to prominence were leaders, not prophets. they did not do for religion, but personal gain. Jesus may have done a lot, but most of it gave him personal glory, and lets face it, he didnt have much choice in wether to die for his sins or not, the books describing how he 'chose' to die were written by his disciples, who probably needed a bit of protection after the Jews had just strung up their leader. After all it wouldnt have looked good for their religion if the son of god was killed by a handful of gaurds, wouldnt god have intervened?

I think in this day and age there would be more of a consensus that religion was a form of control, and belief was the tool, indeed many christians now do not 'believe in god' but rather believe in the peaceful teachings, which they think, in some cases correctly, that is bringing a better way of life for humanity, maybe in another century this will become accepted and we can stop spending so much of our tax money on frigging churches!

I'ld be intrested to know peoples views on religion (Not the Qu'ran) as i think its a fasinating topic, also any people who truely believe in a diety, as i dont think I could ever do it myself!