The manipulation of religion

As the world increasingly gets violent and wars break out and keeps on going for a longer time, there are many people out there who have started to blame religion as the major cause of it. And I don’t entirely blame them because as they see it from their lenses, it is the religion that is being used by each side to justify atrocities against their co-religionists or other religions. Although the numbers of atheists (who don’t believe any higher being) are growing, they are also being prosecuted more (as per a recent global survey). But why does a person have to have a literal meaning of the scripture because if you have that literal meaning then GOD did not have to send so many prophets to earth to explain to people what he has in mind. Apart from the atheists who don’t believe in any higher being (which I doubt very much as I have met people who have some serious doubt about their doubt of a higher being), most people think that they should have a literal interpretation of the scripture and any deviation from that will be considered an abomination or blasphemy. Everybody knows that every human being is individual in its capacity to understand how things work and that is why we have religious scholars who devote their lives to interpreting the scripture. These scholars have the time, energy and dedication and intellectual capacity to interpret the scriptures to the best of their ability and according to the advancement in time in light of what is a sin and what is not. But since these people are not infallible they may interpret something which may be subject to a different interpretation by a scholar who may have different idea of what GOD has said.