How religion puts empathy on hold

Normal ape behavior involves violence toward strangers. Humans developed a sense of empathy stronger than that of other apes as they became more intelligent and more social. However, optimal evolutionary strategy millions of years ago still involves violence, because it's the way that who gets access to resources gets chosen. It's nature's way of choosing wich biochemical machine archetypes and programs will continue and which will not. At the point where empathy became strong, religion came into play as a way of selectively choosing situations where empathy is to be ignored. This is a common thread in many relgions: Israeli, Mayan, Egyptian, etc. With the rise of secular governments, such as the United States, government has taken the role that religion once had, deciding when empathy should be ignored. Empathetic tedences are ignored when the collective has an agenda that can be served by ignored the basic right to life that people in another collective. The serial killer is a criminal because he acts on his own, the soldier is a hero because he acts for the collective. When an act is too senseless and brutal to be justified easily, it is attributed to being something that God or the gods wish to happen. And even now, with secular government agencies responsible for choosing what killing should take place, you still see references to religion and God popping up when people attempt to defend their positions on why the wars need to be fought and won.