Come to think of it, let's not bash all religions. Do you all realize that were it not for religious intellectuals, Europe would still have been a backward cesspool? The ideas of emancipation, individualism and the like were quite heavily promoted by religious thinkers. Martin Luther for example, was one such guy. Instead of depending on someone, a middle man, to communicate with god, one could in fact get rid of the "middle man", because the "middle man" was in essence corrupt. I think Christianity has changed big time. If you follow the "book" verbatim, then you are basically a fundamentalist.