In response to dianavan's somewhat incoherent ramblings: I have never seen Christainity so completely mischaracterized, misrepresented and maligned then dismissed in so short of a space. Your scholarship defies discription and makes me wonder at the main bulk of your post. I frightens me that I actually agree with a small part of it.

The word religion is used twice in the KJV, once in Galatians 1:14 and again in James 1:26. The Greek word is "threskeia" or "threskos" and it means an outward appearance of piety. Elsewhere the words worship (worthiness), Godliness, piety have a similar but more positive meaning.

This thread has the potential to rehash the history of the world and certainly the history of religious thought and development in the Western and Middle-Eastern World and we really don't want to go there. I'll just comment that the Bible, the Jewish Torah has the argument of antiquity on it's side. It has a very high degree of demonstrable integrity in it's favor ( a history and tradition of accurate copy). The New Testament, to the believers of Jesus as God's Messiah (The Anmointed One) neatly dovetails with the Torah as a fulfilment of prophesies of the same. I have read some of the Qoran in English and I cannot speak as one who has a complete intellectual understanding of the same but from what I have read it is quite divergent from the ancient texts. My impression is that it is written as a reaction to the dominance of Judaism and Christianity at the time it was written (ca 600 A.D.). The Book of Mormon uses a similar approach (additional and counter-revelations) posited against the more ancient texts.

So many people have gotten it so wrong for so long that I really hesitate to say anything beyond the most general and self-evident facts. These "RELIGIONS" of peace have killed so many people, have been abused and missused to subdue and enslave people. And, I have to assume that each practioner of each view-point truly believes that "they have it right." I'll refrain. But (there's always a "but") I will say this: Before you comment on this source of so much that has gone into shaping our world---READ IT! Sound like you know what you are talking about. That or go post on another thread.