"It scares me to think of the places that I DON'T do this and
   where I might be being misled." You nailed it on the head.
   That's exactly why I reacted as I did. I mean when people would
   say that, "Most wars are caused by religion" - it smelled like
   it was wrong but I had no way to counter it because _maybe_ they
   were right... and I'd heard it as "major war cause" from
   teachers on up, in textbooks, and really didn't question it TOO
   much, although I would argue sometimes that "it's probably
   land-grabbing and politics more than religion per se".. but
   without something to back it up with, I had to let the idea
   stand. Even when I saw this statistic as part of a graph, I
   thought, "I hope that's true but how could they have gotten it
   so wrong all that time?" and when I investigated the source of
   the claim, I just about cheered because FINALLY I had something
   concrete. If I could go back in time and have a long chat with a
   few social studies, history and science teachers through the
   years, I would do this. I REALLY don't like when education
   misrepresents history. I know it can't be perfect at present. I
   don't expect perfection... but some of the oversimplifications
   are maddening and really inexcusable. == Exactly. I never
   accepted it as "true" fact to myself; the bitterness and sarcasm
   in some BBC documentaries I remember watching as a kid in the
   80s towards the catholic church made me cringe even THEN. I
   didn't like the portrayal of history, but I didn't have much
   else to go with except my own "sense" that it was ridiculous.
   I've never had a problem with religion, most of it. My
   experiences were positive and it was very useful and helpful to
   me. I know there's bad cases and likely some quite bad but I've
   found that people who are bitter tend to exaggerate greatly, so
   I take what they say with a grain of salt. To me, people are
   people. Most people are decent and good enough, want to have
   lives where they're more or less ok with life and aren't looking
   to hurt others. Of course we hear about the bad stuff: far more
   "newsworthy". It gives us a false-view of the world: The very
   same event in the news, for example, will replay over and over
   and over again giving us the IMPRESSION that it's ongoing,
   neverending when in fact, it's something awful that happened
   exactly: once. The abuse of human psychology is maddening to me.
   Muddles people's heads. I'm glad when I discover mistakes I've
   learned and have an opportunity to correct them. ==