Asklemmy

That's difficult to answer, because both groups use the social shield of religious identity (or more accurately conflating their views with religion to their followers) as a method to both deflect criticism from within their bases and to appeal as a legitimate representative to all who practice the faith (even if their appeal is hypocritical and baseless).

I agree with you that those abuses don't undermine the concepts and values placed forward by the root faith (as mentioned in my prior comment, religion can serve beneficial/personal value components within a society), but a leader's ability to wield religion within the halls of governance taints the religion's "purity" among the populace as a whole. As the lies are perpetuated through generations, some concepts preached by these bad influences can become accepted or even indoctrinated as true values.

So again, tricky question to answer. In my personal opinion, the only way to disarm this particular scenario is to maintain a secular form of governance and keep religion only as a personal or communal liberty away from any decision made at a government level (appeal to empirical evidence or logical conclusions instead), but there are holes in that idea as well. Dang.