Why are there any religious 'wars'? It is due to certain criteria, in my opinion. #1: Each claim their 'religion' or 'faith' is the True faith. #2: Each claim they have their God given 'right' to worship as they desire. #3: Each claim that no one has any right to speak ill of their 'religion' or 'faith'. And here is the flip side of 'religious' freedom(s). When a person or group of persons say a certain religion or faith is up to that individual or groups as far as how they want to worship and to Whom they want to worship, others tend to have certain questions in mind. #1: Who are they worshiping? #2: What does their 'Sacred' Texts say about Whom they are worshiping? #3: What are they saying are the 'sacred' and Eternal and Everlasting Truths? #4: What are they promoting as 'Eternal' and/or 'Everlasting'? #5: Who are they promoting as 'Eternal' and/or 'Everlasting'? Because if their religion and/or faith is True, then that would mean that their 'values', 'morals', and GOD is 'Eternal' and 'Everlasting'. That would mean that those things which they promote as Eternal and or Everlasting is Truly The Holy and The Eternal and The Everlasting and not a passing or a fleeting 'trend' of what Holy and Eternal and Everlasting IS.
Child sacrificing is NOT an Eternal, Everlasting, Holy 'thing'. Sexual Immorality is NOT an Eternal, Everlasting, Holy 'thing'. Having religious freedom is NOT an Eternal, Everlasting, Holy 'thing'.
So persons might say they have the right to live and worship as they 'wish' and 'desire' but their promotions of Who and What The Holy and The Eternal and The Everlasting 'things' are could be very wrong and even down right lies to Eternal and Everlasting well being and life. How might I teach a child that child sacrificing is going to be an 'Eternal' or 'Everlasting' occurrence in The Holy Kingdom of God? Or how might I teach a child that I will be allowed to have all the sexual pleasures of spilling my sperm with 10 virgin concubines in The Holy Kingdom of God? There are differences between world philosophies and Eternal Truths. And the distance between them might be very vast.
So basically, religious wars occur because of personal opinions of what The Holy and The Eternal and The Everlasting IS and/or should be AS. Right minded persons acknowledge that they are NOT God or Eternal. No person has put on Immortality, yet.
No one has put on Immortality, yet... Then what about Elijah and Enoch? Elijah was taken up in the Chariot and Enoch was not; for God took him. 2 Kings 2:11 "And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven." Genesis 5:24 "And Enoch walked with God: and he [was] not; for God took him." Nothing in these verses mention them having being 'translated' or taken into The Kingdom of God and The Kingdom of Heaven still being alive.
Most so-called religious wars are just the powers that be using religion as an excuse to go to war. As I read about one of the recent balkan wars, it's a religious war between Serbs who don't go to the Serbian Orthodox church and Croations who don't go to the Catholic Church.
But the Bible also says that God ordered infanticide, which should be equally disqualifying. It is full of moral failings.
I'm with Perdidochas on this one, I think you're getting the cart before the horse. I don't think intolerance to criticism and stern insistence on one's own religion being the only acceptable one are causes of religious hostility as often as they are effects of it. Most religious hostilities have some mundane and often close-to-reasonable disagreement in its core. When hostilities arise between groups that happen to have different religions, the religious aspect gets drawn in. Both sides link their religion to their case in the mundane disagreement, and suddenly, being critical of the religion becomes synonymous with taking a stance on the mundane matter. Of course it's more complicated than that, hostilities arise gradually over time, and certainly the things you have mentioned don't do much to deflate the conflict, but I think assuming that they are the cause gives people an excuse to not really understand the core of the issue. It's so easy for anyone to say "nah, they're just being unreasonable", and thus to avoid figuring out how to actually address the problems.
There are religious wars because Jesus is too much of a prick to use his "all-powerful" skillz and snap his fingers and come down and educate people which of the religions is actually the one true religion - I'm sure he can find the time to do that. Or else he's simply not real in the first place - so that would mean that Christians would be delusional people.
OK, I'll brake that for you once but next time use your brain, FS. It means that all truths in this wold are relative, conditional. Especially that applies to metaphysical believes.
But it does so while making an absolute statement. The idea that truth is relative is self-contradictory, because that would make the statement itself relative, which would mean that there are situations in which truth is not relative.