And Beverly says what I was thinking. Except I'd been going to quote someone else, who'd said (I paraphrase, since I failed to cut'n'paste and am stoopid) that Christianity all gets tarred with the same brush of Mad Fundamentalist Extreme Right stuff, whereas most Christians are getting on with their lives and not being all extremist, yo.
The more I listen to your discussioon about religion in America, the more I realise that the US has a lot more in common with Egypt in terms of religion than it has with the UK. Which - blimey.
(And, yes, Mohamed was v. much all about women having equal rights with men, definitely having a soul, having responsibility for their own actions and choices and money and getting to initiate a divorce if they wanted to. Which Saudi Arabia? Not so big on, these days.)
All of which comes back to my faith/society divide wrt religion. afaic, attending church is a 'society' thing, not a faith thing. Yes, you can then use your time in the church to focus upon God, just as you can in your living room or on a mountain top. But equally, you can just take your presence in the church as you doing your bit, and passively take in the words of your pastor whilst thinking about what groceries you need to buy and wondering whether Mrs Smith over there is giving you disapproving glances because she thinks your top is too slutty. In a church/mosque/temple what you're being presented with is the appearance of engagement with faith, but it's down to the individual whether they're doing so actively or passively. Moreover you've got someone trying to mediate between you and God, and you've got groupthink and your need to be accepted by the rest of the crowd all going on, and I think that can actively get in the way of one's relationship with God and with one's personal engagement with faith and with one's conscience. I think faith is a profoundly personal thing, and organised religion an inherently social thing.
On a related note - it's not uncommon here to see men with dirty smudges on their foreheads. The first time I saw this, I asked the guy if he'd got a bruise. No, he said, he'd been praying. Now, afaic, if you had a dirty forehead for any other reason, you'd damned well wipe it clean. (And indeed cleaning oneself prior to prayer is something people are v. big on in Islam.) So afaic? Wearing a big old dirty smudge on one's forehead is egotism, nothing more. 'Look at me, I'm so devout my forehead's dirty, and I'm far too humble and high-minded to go cleaning away the dirt that got there through my abasement of self' type of thing. I have no patience with it. It's a signal to other people, not to God.