The great anthropologist Clifford Geertz once wrote, "Religion may be a stone thrown into the world; but it must be a palpable stone and someone must throw it."
The singer/songwriter Ani Difranco expressed the same sentiment on the title track of her CD Up several years ago:
"Up up up up up up up goes the steeple
God’s work isn’t done by God, it’s done by people."
The heart of the question -- Is religion man-made? -- isn't whether or not God exists. (He does, and He is true and compassionate and merciful, but I am not interested in spending energy arguing about this with anyone).
The central issue here is how, in a world of deep religiosity and intense interaction, we can collectively nurture an ethic that affirms freedom over slavery, peace over war, pluralism over totalitarianism.
And that has everything to do with who is throwing the stone of religion, who is erecting the steeple of the church, who is interpreting and acting on God's word.
In other words, it is a problem of sociology, not theology; of institutions, not religious sources; of what people do, not what scripture says.
The crisis of religious violence in the world today is because of the power of nefarious individuals, not because of the content of religious traditions. And the solution to the problem is not denigration of religion a la Hitchens, Harris and Hirsi Ali, but new religious leadership that understands and acts on the dimensions of faith that are life-affirming instead of suffocating.
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