“The common error of ordinary religious practice is to mistake the symbol for the reality” - Alan Watts
I think it's perfectly practical to hate organized religion. All religions, after all, preach the same basic things, all of which are promptly disregarded once a church is set up and people are running the show. Jesus, the pauper prophit, taught us that the kingdom of heaven lies within us, so what did we do? COMPLETELY misunderstood (I have to think intentionally) his meaning and built grand cathedrals with material idols and wonderful drapery etc etc. Loving your neighbor is supposed to be another one of those concepts that supersedes, say, vague, uber-interpreted comments about sexual preference*, yet that is the FIRST concept to get thrown out the window in the name of god. Without getting too deep into semantics, if you define religion as a personal relationship with god, then organized religion is the worst thing that ever happened to religion. We've not only mistaken the symbol for the reality, we've begun worshipping the symbol to spite the reality. What was that god said about worshipping idols?....
Personally, I hate (and I don't think hate is too strong a word for this) christianity for the fact that it stunted human progression for over a thousand years. Anyone who has studied Greek or Roman history will see where I'm coming from, christianity plunged us completely into a dark age until the renaissance, we lost so so much literature, spiritual and social development, even infrastructure and technology due to the control structures set up after the council of Nicea. What could be more tragic than human progression stiffled with dogmatic foolishness in an age of technological advancement such as ours? How much sooner and healthier would we have gotten here had Rome never crumbled into the mistake of embracing a tiresome religious cult? How much purer would christianity have stayed had the power of the empire not absorbed and refined it? Early christianity was beautiful, but promply had its wings clipped after incorporation into the machine. So, I guess this goes both ways for me, and maybe specifically I should hate Contantine for all of this, I hope he suffers in Hades.
"God and I are one in the act of my perceiving him" - Miester Eckhart - (13th century Christian Mystic)
*interesting side note on god's 'stance' on sexuality. There are several references tabooing man on man sexuality, but not one denying woman on woman sexuality, in fact, in certain passages it seems to be encouraged.