peoples views on organized religion

Most man-made organizations are created to control others. When the organization controls the individual's mind and money, that's complete control.

All religious organizations were created by men for men.

As for religion and god, the majority of humans believe in one or many religions and gods. It's normal for humans; the proof is in the numbers.

Beyond that, religion is an accident of birth. In other words, many follow the religion of their parents.

It is my personal belief that religion is not needed or required if the individual accepts the basics of human goodness; treat all living things with respect and dignity. No other teachings or religious precepts are needed.

For God's view of organized religion, read Revelation ch. 17 and 18.

Organized religion is essentially an agency that aims or claims to represent a god to its followers, whatever motive they may have.
More information would help.
Are your assertions aimed toward all organised religion, Christianity or just the Abrahamic ones?
Are your views Spiritually inspired, interpreted from a holy book or thought based?

There was a quote that appeared recently on another thread. I know I'm going to mangle it because I can't find it now. But this is close enough: "With or without religion, good people will do good things and bad people will do bad things. But if good people do bad things it's because of religion."

'Nuff said.

That was not an original thought. It goes back a long way. But I haven't traced it to its source, yet.

Don't agree, though, most atheists are also good people, yet they still find reasons to do bad.

Religion tends to be organized, ritual and hierarchical because belief systems need social reinforcement in the of absence of tangible "evidence". That ritualistic organization, utilising authoritative repetitive "word magic", tends to be re-ified by reference to "holy books" whose continuity mimics the concept of "the eternal" which is a requisite for a reliable permanent deity. However, what may be a benefit at the psychological level as an insurance against the potential meaningless of existence, tends to be a vehicle for tribal perniciousness at the social level.

I think it is meaningless to divorce the two. It seems you are trying to have the cake and act like you are not going to eat it but you do anyways unknowingly.

Here is my point..

If you are just a simple deist who says, yeah I believe there is a god but I can't tell you anything else other than that. I have no idea what it wants if it expects anything from me or if it was even behind the creation of anything including the universe. I have no idea about it's traits or what makes up it's godness.

That would be fine and it would actually be in line with your attempt above to try and divorce god from religion. But I have a feeling that you actually do attribute attributes and it's will upon you. That it expects things from you and that there is a heaven or hell as well and it resides over judgment of your soul after your life ends. If I am wrong then nice job.

As soon as you start saying there are expectations from your god then you inevitably invent religion. No one else has to accept your ideas of what god expects from you, just you and that is still a religion. Because you are adjusting your behavior based on your concept of what you believe god expects from you and practicing it. That IS religion. No one else has to accept it to be religion, just you is all that is required to fulfill the definition.

Even if you pray to this god of yours then that too falls into a religious practice because how do you even know that this god is capable of knowing or hearing or receiving your prayer? You can't know but if you assume it can then you are lumping an attribute, such as all knowing onto it's existence but how can you be so certain that your god has this attribute?

In other words, I think you are full of ****. You just are attempting to try and one up everyone else by saying believe in god but find religion is bullshit. You realize that religion is bullshit but you just can't accept the fact that NOTHING supports the existence of god. There is NO evidence for any gods existence.

T'was physicist Steven Weinberg in "99"

An interesting assertion, if there was no evidence for a god, then there would be no reason to create gods. Evidence is always presented both for and against gods, it is down to you as to how much that sways your opinion. We all examine the same evidence, we merely each one of us come to our own conclusions based on the evidence we examine.

Perhaps it would be more accurate for you to state that none of the evidence you have been presented with leads you to the belief that a god or indeed gods exist, you could even go as far as to say that you do not believe that any such evidence exists that could persuade you.

Alternatively you could just switch out the word "evidence" for "proof" that also would work just fine

There is a reason why the concept of a god arises. It has to do with being consciously aware of self. Without this concept of self the concept of god does not arise.

When the world was more misunderstood the explanation for how or why things occurred in nature were attributed to the acts of the gods. Even to this day there are people who try to explain natural disasters by claiming their god is behind it for a purpose.

As soon as an event is understood the concept of there being a god behind it quickly vanishes. But this never seems to prevent a desperate believer from just pushing the concept into an unknown corner of reality. Just to claim that a god has to be behind the existence of reality says nothing if you can't actually establish a piece of linking evidence. To say reality itself is that link, fails but once again a "desperate to believe in god" individual will justify it with anything to substantiate their need for a god's existence.

i view organized religion with a sideways glance through squinted eyes

It may be those glasses

Popular sentiment yet fundamentally flawed. If bad people change and do good things, it's also because of religion (or, A religion, actually). Religion isn't inherently flawed, people do bad things in the name of A religion just like they do them in the name of Liberalism - because the movement brings the chance for power and an automatic source of followers if you get the messaging right. As an institution, however, A religion can do a lot of good.

Money. Power. Faith.

Seriously though I'm Christian by birth and love God. With me every second of the day. But it's a lot of BS sometimes. Hard to understand, respect or even care about sometimes. Considered myself an Athiest for years! But hey, everyone's different. As they say, everyone makes mistakes and so do I.

Come to think of it, maybe this post was a mistake...