While religion is used as a tool to wage war or such violence, i don't see the problem in the religions themselves. If we are to get rid of every single thing which cause conflicts, get rid of the concept of "money" first. That comes before religion in creating wars. Even "rFactor 2 or Assetto Corsa?" question creates a conflict, yes not violent, but it has the same core. I am sure some people get ready to punch others looking at their repleis to each-other on the internet. There are many more factors to add as well. But getting rid of those are indeed impossible. Diversity can't be destroyed. A knife can be used to kill, same as can be used to peel some delicious apples. So the problem lies in the knife holders.
When you magnify atheism while openly mocking religions (like that spaghetti monster), you become like the people who shove down their beliefs into others' throats. The real problem lies not in religions, but in education and poverty. Nearly all of these kind of extremists emerge from a background of uneducatedness or poverty. Ignorance added with desperate life conditions, makes people dangerous and pathetic. I don't know any religion encouraging offense other than self-defence, yet ignorant idiots are easily mislead by the people who manipulate religious teachings. But they can also be manipulated by many different factors too. Money, women, politics, nationality, ideologies, etc etc... You can even use Justin Bieber to move some ignorant girls to do terrible things.
When people say that religions caused wars, they should not say that is the "only" factor. World Wars had no religion involved. Many wars in the middle ages were to control trade routes. USA destroyed natives for their lands. Even the crusades was not pure religious, it was used as a tool to manipulate the inner-European politics and economics by the Papal leadership and some other lords. I would never accuse Christianity for the bloodshed occured in the crusades. Or Judaism for the atrocities in Gaza. Politicians, kings or emperors just use religion as a tool, religion does not dictate them. Extreme islamist terrorism emerged from the middle-eastern politics of Cold War. It did not emerge from Quran. People lost everything. Education, land, wealth and dignity. Nowhere in Quran, Allah dictates believers into punishing others for their sins, there are passages only which Allah itself punishes them (And most of these are showed as if islam encourages violence). It is not our job to comdemn people. If a muslim is not ignorant, he would know that. Yet most of the muslims are unfortunately, ignorant!
The only solutions are dialog between the people, proper education and getting rid of this unfair distribution of wealth. Europe **ed up the African and middle-eastern countries in the past century, now they get immigration from those places naturally as those countries have lower life standards. Today, Turkey has thousands of immigrants from Iraq and Syria, so i know how frustrating it is to see public is over-crowded by them. But there is no way of reverting this, and we all have to learn living together. Also don't expect people to adapt to the European standards quickly as their history is not developed with events like Renaissance, Enlightenment or French Revolution. And of course, not everything European are perfect neither.
Living in the U.S.A., it goes like this:
All Muslims are terrorists, all blacks are criminal scum, all Mexicans are illegal immigrants, all Native Americans are bloodthirsty savages.
I can talk about it all day.
I think you are exxagarating a bit here. I personally lived in Philadelphia last year for about 3-4 weeks. Visited lots of places, interacted with people with my mother (who wears a headscarf). And there was not any kind of racist or despicing approach towards us. Instead, i have seen some of the most respectable people there. In the city, there were all kinds of colored people. You might be living in a worse part of the country, so that might be the difference. Again, the reasons are probably ignorance, lack of dialog, and lack of knowledge on the other!