Oh my. I know the old adage about arguing on the internet, but I would like to make some clarifying points about the discussion before it goes any further.

There is a tendency among people when they're arguing about religion to talk about "Christianity" as a mindset. This is an inherently tenous stance to take - namely because there are a number of different takes on Christianity, and nearly every one of them is different. Greek Orthodoxy is not Catholocism is not Presbyterianism is not Calvinism is not Fundamentalism. Even the different denominations of Christianity have their differences throughout time!

I believe it's necessary to clarify what TYPE of Christianity you're talking about before you make crass generalizations about what it is that Christians believe.

You stated another problem with Cristianity.....

Why are there so many different types? It could be just a little more believable if there was only one type..... errrm. Maybe not.

Christianity
 

Christianity to me is like saying, this is life, but it is a sin to do anything that would be considered human nature, and dont forget to pay the man on the way out.
To me Christianity is just a religion made to control people and screw around with them. Just because its written in a book, doesnt make it worth fighting wars over. God is a story book character that a man wrote about, and some guy just wanted to see how far it would go.
The way i see it, by worshiping god you are by proxy worshiping the man who wrote god. so why bother. And i always enjoyed the term "God Fearing" that just doesnt seem right. Why should you fear this thing that is supposed to grant you salvation? why worship something you fear so much? and just because some person in a robe on sundays tells you that you will go to "hell" if you dont fear god? gives him some power eh? People need to stop and think about what they are doing. Why not believe in yourself? I can touch me, i can see me, and i cant touch or feel god, i only hear about him from the guy who holds the book. Wouldn't you feel better about something if you spent the time you would on god on yourself? who deserves it more, a story book character or yourself? I pick the latter
This is my oppionion on the matter.

It’s at the bottom of my list be cause they are the most 'vocal' of the religions, I don’t get other religions knocking on my door. In addition, they try to push their views onto others, (through legislation and the like) they don’t seem to understand separation of church and state.

Working on it. But let me know when there is exactly one kind of athism....

I hold equal contempt for nearly all religions.

I'm going to agree with the Geek here. Some may have read my rantings before and know that I support the belief that all religions are merely different names for the same neurological disorder. Sure, Christians have great charities and they do some nice things... but they also believe in talking bushes and they murdered off a race of people just so they could have some nice land to build their churches on.

To quote from Corporate Avenger;
"If Hitler was on the twenty dollar bill, how would the Jews feel?"

I think athiests can be just as bad as the any christian. Tell me why it is allright for an athiest or agnostic to prosetylize(sp) all they want, but good christians must avoid prosetylization lest they be considered overbearing? For the record i am against unwelcome prosetylization.
It seems like a great many people dislike religion, christianity especially. That is fine as long as you can be specific in your criticisms and not vaguely denounce all religion as worthless and "a crutch". Religion is not by nature a crutch any more than any other belief system. Besides, anything can be used as a crutch. Atheism can be used as a crutch, yet that is no justification for defining it as purely a crutch and dismissing it.

You hear people 'bashing' Christianity because that’s what most of us who post here were brought up with.

Its simple rebellion/P.O.ed that their parents religion didn't have all the answers.

Christianity is also the dominant world religion in terms of economy/power right now, another fine reason for people to bash it.

Finally Christianity has some nice parts in it that people can focus on to bash. In the PC world, any absolute is hated as the only thing a PC person can profess to hate and get away with are people who are not PC.

If the western world were primarily Jewish you would see much of the same crap focused there.

I don't have a problem with people criticising any religion if they are doing so in a well thought out, respectful manner. It just seems that so many times it simply boils down to overly broad and selective generalizations a la "religion is a crutch for the weak minded", or "religion is responsible for atrocites." I'm not very religious, but i know good people who are deeply religious and so it irks me when people use vague one-sided statements in an invalid attempt to invalidate religion and religious people as a whole.

Christianity is my least favorite religion because I was a chritian (catholic) for many years. I want to catholic school and was an altar server, everything, but over the years I came to think of the religion of manipulative, and it just didn't make any sense. In my school they gave us a definition of what god was and they tested us on it. After years of that I just had to turn my back on religion and on "god".

You need to be careful to distinguish between your schooling and your religion. Someone (I think it might have been a member of CSNY, but dont quote me on that) said that he didnt believe in God because of the terrible things that the church had done. He, like you, is making the mistake of not seperating the two. The church (or in your case, your schooling), is NOT the religion, and should be treated as seperately. Going to church or being schooled in it is not a prerequisite of being Christian.