People are violent. They create the religions. Religion is a man made construct, so therefore a religion can not be necessarily violent withouh the followers of such religion. Religion is a set of beliefs. Beliefs can be violent, but they are not all shared by the followers. So those beliefs not shares can't be the beliefs of a religion. I'm sure that every religion has a few dissenters. And if people have free will, then wouldn't they choose whether or not the religion was violent or not? So wouldn't that be whether the human is violent or not? The creator of the religion would be the violent, not the religion itself? The debate should be what prophet, or leader of religion is the most violent. Religions don't create themselves.