Now I think one of the reasons why religion developed in the way that it did over the centuries was precisely to curb this murderous bent that we have as human beings.

Armstrong frames religion not primarily as a generator of violence but as a long cultural project aimed at restraining it. The “murderous bent” points to a pessimistic anthropology: humans are capable of cruelty, tribalism, and sacralized aggression. In this view, religious traditions developed disciplines—rituals, ethical codes, compassion practices, prohibitions, and communal norms—to domesticate these impulses and redirect them toward social cohesion and mercy. The claim also implicitly challenges modern narratives that treat religion as uniquely culpable for conflict, suggesting instead that violence is a human constant and that religion has often functioned as one of the tools societies used to limit it.