First things first I'll come clean on my religion
I'm a Druid
and other than that i'll be quiet on it because i'm happy with being a Druid.
however i'm also a Unitarian minister :-)

i can wholeheartedly agree with mes's statement that you can pick up 2 copies of the bible and come out with 2 different interpretations of the text.I'm not going to quote scripture and verse changes that have been made through out the long twisted history of the bible. But I can point out when the deviation occurred from the original works... As soon as man became involved. Man will always use religion as his way of getting what he wants. For example during the middle ages and the inquisition it was common if a person was a known Jew /gay/protestant/turk/whatever a person could be found guilty based on just that one fact
the reason behind the killing of people of the Jewish faith, they killed Christ.
Killing of turks... heathens unfit for a heavenly blessing
Protestant.... A deviant from the church and it must be squashed ( often the term.. Witch was used for these people)
Gay... Usually with the call of Witch they were killed.

As Mes pointed out Religion can be used to justify anyones point of view. Because of different interpretations of the text can be radically different.
anyway I am done with my diatribe