Hello Alex, welcome back.
Religion itself is not the problem, those who misuse religion are the problem…
It’s the same for any ideology, fanatical extremist Athiests are just as bad as fanatical extremist “Muslims” or “Christians”.
I find Athiest people tend to be the most intolerant, bitter and dissatisfied. I would rather believe in a religion than cults of race, nation, blood and geography but I’m not intolerant of those who believe in another religion.
Secular Athiest religions such as Nazism and Communism have a far more horrible and facist record than any of the spiritual faiths, they had only evil to offer whilst religions such as Islam and Christianity can and are also sources of good and positive inspiration.
With the absence of spiritual religion, a void is left, people feel purposeless and to fill that void and satisfy their quest for meaning they turn to racist facist cults of race, nation and blood.
Those that are going to be bad are going to be bad regardless of whether there is religion or not, regardless of whether they profess their ideology to be Christianity, Athiesm/Secularism or Islam.
Those that are going to be good are going to take good and positive inspiration such as anti-racialism, charity, animal-rights, human-rights etc. from their religions.
The Soviet Russians were motivated by extremist fanatical Athiesm, they buthcered Muslims for no reason other than for practicing a religion, even non-political non-combatant Muslims dissappeared into thin air because they were hindering Athiesm whilst the Soviets wanted to promote Athiesm. Some of the Muslim leaders who did forsake Islam for the Soviets were still killed because the Soviets thought “hey if these guys are not true to their own ideology they can’t be very loyal to ours” so it was loose-loose situation, they were loosers in this world and the hereafter, Muslims should take heed, it reminds me of a saying of the Prophet 
“Whoever seeks to please Allah by making people angry, Allah will protect him from people; whoever seeks to please people by making Allah angry, Allah will leave him to the people.”
Take the BNP or other skinhead Neo-Nazi organisations across Europe, they don’t profess any religion, they base their hatred on skin color, today the BNP have jumped on the anti-Islamic bandwagon and are making full use of the current political situation around the world but in reality they hate anyone who is not white and they’ve been hateful for way before people in this country even knew what Islam was.
Religion can and does play a positive role in combating the disease of racism, many neo-nazi skinheads reject their racist ways upon embracing Islam or take Malcolm X who was racist prior to embracing Islam, his cult prior to embracing the true Islam painted all white people in the same brush and held them all responsible for the enslavement of his people but his racist generalising views changed once he prayed shoulder to shoulder to blonde haired blue eyed Muslims and shared their food.
Religion is not the true motivation or inspiration for terrorism or hatred, yes some terrorist organisations do use the name of religion to rouse emotions and to rally more support whether it’s the “Islamic” terrorists of today or the Nazis who used the writings of Protestant. Martin Luther) but the real reasons are something else whether that’s political, greed or racism.
The reason for so called “Islamic” terrorism is not the Noble Koran, it is the political situation, nothing justifies terrorism and “Islamic” terrorists are wrong no matter what but the reason behind them is not the Koran, it is things like the Gulf War, the occupation of Palestine, foreign army bases and puppet goverments in Muslim countries. Read the history of Muslims you will se that Muslims were most tolerant of Non-Muslims when Muslims were strong but when they became weak and attacked then anti-Muslim sentiment grew amongst them because regardless of what religious scriptures say “hatred begets hatred and love begets love”, it’s human nature.
Islamic scripture is not the inspiration for terror, yes Islamic scripture allows “a just war” or jihad but it does not allow killing innocent civillians simply because they are Kafir (Non-Muslim), Islamic scripture enjoins on soldiers to protect the non-combatants, women, children, elderly, Non-Muslim clergy, Non-Muslim houses of worship, animals, plants and tress etc.
The real reason behind unjust “holy wars” are also something else even though the facade of religion is used.