I didn't want to derail this other thread, so new thread time...
Quote Originally Posted by TheX1le
I think ORGANIZED religion is evil and represents every thing wrong in this world. Through out the ages organized religion has been all about death, money, and power. It simply just uses the bible to archive its goals.
I agree, but I wouldn't quite put it in those terms :P I'm going to quote myself from another forum to save time here, although this particular critique is Jesus-heavy.

Quote Originally Posted by Terr, elsewhere
I look at it this way: Religions (when organized) breed politics. But the politics aren't tools of the religion, the religion is the medium and the tool of the power-hungry who arise within it. Similarly, religion can be the tool of national forces, although mainly when there's a difference in religion between both sides. In these cases, religion is a political tool and a salve for the worried consciences. Seperating religion and state protects both. It keeps religion from being a tool of the state, and keeps the state from favoritism.

Jesus was undeniably a liberal anti-status-quo figure. He preached varieties of civil disobedience, such as the "other cheek" or "go another mile". He was against the confluence of religion and commerce (moneylenders in the temple). He recognized that wealth is relative (the woman who gave only two pennies), which underlies progressive taxation policies. In contradiction to the prevailing mood, he didn't hold the opinon that the poor or the sick were mainly in their situations because they didn't work hard enough or were lazy, but instead helped them and commanded his followers to do likewise. He had plenty of bad things to say about the stinginess of the wealthy. The pharisees were the embodiment of mixing church and state, yet he opposed them and said to "render unto caesar", and specifically rejected calls by his followers (and temptations by the devil in the desert) that he make the kingdom of God a kingdom of men by going for political power. Jesus did all sorts of things (e.g. the foot-washing, associating with whores) which were far more offensive to the establishment at the time than many charges levelled by the religious right against people today.

Compare this to the the Falwell/Robertson/Dobson or mega-church sect of Christianity. In contrast, this is the denial of the historical, personal Jesus and the raising of Jesus as the figurehead of a hierarchy of individual worth based on written legalism, which is what Jesus fought against!

To nitpick, [Jesus] taught that being a good person was about doing good works, and not about such subtleties of whether you wiped your butt with the wrong hand.

Gay marriage. Calling it a sin is the pre-jesus phariseeical behavior: The thing is a sin not because anyone is hurt or evil is committed, but because it is prohibited and ritually unclean. It's like the priest leaving the man by the side of the road in the parable of the good samaritan: He was more concerned with obeying the letter of the law than the spirit.