what is the difference between faith and religion?
faith and religion are closely related to another, but there are many differences between them. one of those differences is how they are carried out. religion is more strict and structured than faith is. an example is christianity. this is a
what are you talking about religious people get mocked frequently and looked down upon by those who either believe differently or don't believe at all. this is why we shouldn't have religious people in power, they have a tendency to make it hard on the other religions. haven't you noticed that hunting and fishing is something that transcends politics and religion and everything? even vp cheney enjoys hunting, and bagging an occassional lawyer. people from all walks of life enjoy hunting and fishing, republicans, democrats, mormons, catholics, baptists, you name it. when you think about all the wars that are fought over religion or politics and the number of people who are killed in the name of religion or politics i sometimes think we should have a religion of hunting where we simply hunt and enjoy life and let everybody else do the the same. nothing to fight over or kill each other over. evil doesn't really exist. it's a religious concept. 
 
the potential to do bad stuff though... that exists both within and outside. the differences between sunni and shī‘ah sects of islam started out as political over a dispute of who should become the leader after muhammad's death. over time, differences have evolved in theological issues as well as socio‑political attitudes. 

immediately following the death of muhammad in 632 c.e., the issue of who would become his successor caused a major rift. ali and aisha are the central figures at the origin of the shī‘ah-sunni split. muhammad's daughter fatima married ali, her father's first cousin. ali was opposed by aisha, muhammad's child-bride who was the daughter of abu bakr. 

the term shī‘ah ( شيعة‎) is a shortened form of shī‘aht ali (شيعة علي) , which means "the followers of ali" - and at the time of ali's death in 661 c.e., that is probably all it was: a party or tendency of people who supported ali's claims to the caliphate. shī‘ah do not worship ali as some people mistakenly believe. shī‘ah feel that ali should have been the first caliph and that the caliphate should pass down only to direct descendants of mohammed via ali and fatima, they often refer to themselves as ahl al bayt or "people of the house" [of the prophet]. sunni ( سني) comes from sunna ( سنة) the arabic word meaning traditions of the prophet. sunni are also referred to as ahl ul-sunna wa-l-jama'ah (arabic: أهل السنة والجماعة) (people of tradition and congregation) which implies that the sunni are united. shī‘ah sects include twelvers, ismaili, alawi and zaidiyyah.

beliefs "aqeedah" ( عقيدة) —
sunni have two sets of enumerated creeds, the six articles of belief and the five pillars of islam. on the other hand, shī‘ah twelvers have the roots of religion and the branches of religion. 

the six sunni articles of belief (see shi'ah roots) are:
o- tawhīd ( توحيد) (monotheism) allah is the one and only one worthy of all worship. 
o- nubuwwah (prophethood) and rusul (messengers) sent by allah. 
o- kutub (books) allah (including the qur'an) 
o- mala'ika (angels) 
o- qiyâmah (يوم القيامة) (day of resurrection and judgment) (qur'an 71.18) (qur'an 31.34, 74.47) (qur'an 72.130) (qur'an 74.9) (qur'an 74.38)
o- qadar (fate) 

the five shī‘ah "usūl al-dīn" (roots of religion) are: 
o- tawhīd ( توحيد) (monotheism) allah is the one and only one worthy of all worship. (tawhid is derived from the root a,h,d = one)
o- nubuwwah (prophethood)
o- adalah (justice)
o- imāmah (leadership)
o- qiyâmah (يوم القيامة) (day of judgment)
(qur'an 71.18) (qur'an 31.34, 74.47) (qur'an 72.130) (qur'an 74.9) (qur'an 74.38).

the sunni five pillars of islam:
o- shahādah (testimony of faith)
o- salāt (prayer) 5 times per day
o- sawm (fasting during daylight hours of the month of ramadan) (qur'an 2:183-185)
o- zakāt (alms of 2.5%) - khums (the charity of 20%)
o- hajj (pilgrimage to mecca) 

the twelve shī‘ah "furū al-dīn" (branches of religion) are: 
o- salāt (prayer) includes shahādah (testimony of faith) with belief in ali (3-5 times per day)
o- sawm (fasting during daylight hours of the month of ramadan) (qur'an 2:183-185)
o- zakāt (poor-rate) khums (one-fifth)
o- hajj (pilgrimage to mecca) 
o- jihād جهاد‎ (struggle to please allah) 
o- walayah - guardianship
o- taharah - purity & cleanliness
o- amr-bil-ma'rūf (enjoining what is good) 
o- nahi-anil-munkar (forbidding what is evil) 
o- tawalla (loving ahl al-bayt and their followers ) 
o- tabarra (disassociating from the enemies of the ahl al-bayt) 

kutub given to prophets by allah 
o- sahífa (scroll revealed to nuh)
o- sahífa (scroll revealed to ibráhím)
o- taurat (the book revealed to músa)
o- zabúr (the psalms revealed to dawúd)
o- injíl (the gospel revealed to 'isa)
o- qur'án (the koran revealed to muhammad)

the sunni shahada is:
لا إله إلا الله ومحمد رسول الله lā 'ilāha 'illā llāha wa muhammadun rasūlu llāhi
the shi'ah shahada is:
la iláha il alláh, muhammadan rasúl alláh, 
-- and the phrase -- alíyun walí-alláh, wasíyu rasulillah, wa khalífa tuhu bila fasl.
"there is no god but alláh, muhammad is the messenger of alláh, alí is the friend of alláh. ali is the successor of the messenger of allah and his first caliph."

ashura ( عاشوراء‎) - 10th of muharram (january 29, 2007):
the 1st of muharram is new year's day, and with it marks the beginning of the islamic (hijri) calendar. both sunni and shī‘ah celebrate new year. shī‘ah practice maatam (self-flagellation) is practiced on ashura, the 10th of muharram, in a mourning ritual for hussain ibn ali. sunni consider this to be haram (forbidden).

since the 10th century, a distinctive institution of shī‘ah islam is the doctrine of "imamah" and "`ismah" (the spiritual leadership of the twelve imams and their infallibility) the other dogmata developed still later. shī‘ah argue that a person prone to errors of judgement and sin cannot lead people spiritually. on the other hand, sunni consider an imam to be merely a prayer leader. 

sunni recognize four "madhab" (مذهب pl. مذاهب ) schools of legal thought. the founder is called the "muhaddith".
--o hanafi (founded by an numan ibn thabit abu hanifa ca. 700-67 c.e.) 
--o maliki (founded by abd allah malik ibn anas ca. 715-95 c.e.) 
--o shafi'i (founded by muhammad ibn idris ash-shafi`i 767-820 c.e.) 
--o hanbali (founded by ahmad ibn muhammad bin hanbal 780-855 c.e.) 

shī‘ah generally follow 
--o jafri (founded by ja'far ibn muhammad ibn ali ibn husayn)

sunni accepted "ijtihad" as an important source of legislation, but they had practically blocked the road for any original thinking on the matters of reframing the laws in accordance with changing times. the shī‘ah, with their emphasis on "`aql", kept the door of new thinking on legislation open, and they gave much scope to reason for exercising its power. similarly the notion of "ijma`" (consensus), which was emphasized much by the sunnis and was given only a very minor role to play in legislation by the shī‘ah, came to be accepted as the basis of democratization by shī‘ah scholars.

so far as the justification of "taqiyyah" (dissimulation) is concerned, the islamic scholar amini admits that the sunni also follow it for it is an expedient method to ensure the survival of a faith under hostile regimes. 

according to the islamic scholar, hamid enayet, sunni believe in the inherent goodness of man, whereas shī‘ah believe that man is essentially sinful and carries a sense of guilt. 

shī‘ah divorce and inheritance in that it is more favorable to women than sunni practice. supposedly the reason for this is the high esteem in which fatima, the wife of ali and the daughter of muhammad, was held. shī‘ah recognize the practice of "muttah" ( نكاح المتعة‎ ) (fixed-term temporary marriage) which the sunni forbid.

on a practical daily level, the "adhan" (call to prayer) is different for shī‘ah and sunni. each practice wudu (partial ablutions) ghusl (full ablutions for friday prayer) and salat (prayer) differently. during salat when prostrating, shī‘ah place the forehead onto a piece of hardened clay from karbala, not directly onto the prayer mat, whereas sunni put their forehead directly on the prayer mat. during prayer, shī‘ah hold their hands at their sides whereas sunni fold their hands. shī‘ah tend to combine prayers, sometimes worshipping three times per day instead of five as the sunni do. 

shī‘ah also have some different ahadith and prefer those narrated by ali and fatima to those related by other companions of the prophet. because of her opposition to ali, those narrated by aisha count among the least favored. 

these differences are significant as evidenced by the conflict between sunni and shī‘ah in iraq.

significant differences are also in manner of dress for clerics, slightly different postures for prayer and differences regarding belief in the "mahdi" (divinely guided one of endtimes) and "dajjal" (antichrist). 

other differences are because of the culture in the country where they live. iran is predominantly shī‘ah and many of the clerics in iraq were trained in iran. almost all iranians were sunni for many centuries, and they embraced the shī‘ah faith on mass scale only after safawids came in power (1502 c.e.) 

in 1928, four years after the abolishment of the caliphate, the egyptian schoolteacher hasan al-banna founded the first islamic fundamentalist movement in the sunni world, the muslim brotherhood (al-ikhwan al-muslimun). al-banna was appalled by "the wave of atheism and lewdness [that] engulfed egypt" following world war i.

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. i'll suppose that you're telling the truth, which, i'm sure you're not, simply by a few of the tells in your message. i'll suppose as such because your imaginary situation is possible.
i don't believe christians are necessarily idiots, and not many taoists believe that at all. it's not very logical to say "creationist = idiot" because that implies a million and one presuppositions and a very very jaundiced psychological map.
you have to ask the question "why do they believe in creationism as opposed to evolutionism despite the fact that they've been thoroughly educated on evolution, and the fact that the world could not have possibly been created in 7 days 6000 years ago."
there can be a million answers, but the most prominant one is this: "it's too much work to find my own answer, and this one fits--if i die, and i'm right, wonderful. i go to heaven, if i'm wrong, oh well, i won't remember anyway. it's a good guidebook for morals, and keeps me doing the right thing. christianity has made me a better person."
does that make you an idiot? no, it just makes you weak in one area of development. who cares if you're weak in one area if you're strong in countless others. if you do good work, helping people, making the world a better place, that's really all that matters.
the conflict arises if you're pushing theocratic reform in government, that tries to subject the whole world to your ideology simply because you haven't got the mental reserves to focus on what you really believe happened in the beginning of it all, or when you're one of the loud voices screaming out against stem-cell research technology, or any other philosophically possibly morally objectionable science on the premise of a few verses in a book.
with all of these considerations in mind, i don't care that you don't accept the science on evolution, it doesn't effect me, and it doesn't effect any of us. it only effects you, and your personal psychological map. how you view the whole, how you interact with the people around you. well.........................allah and god are the same if, my friend, god is as infinite as they say he is how then would we be able to grasp him at al any more than a cockroach is able to understand a man. a cockroach might feel the vibrations of the man but he does not comprehend him as a man. so humans create a story book about god which brings its believers into a standard conduct for social cohesion and as a means for people to more easily relate to each other since they have a rule book, and a rule book sanctioned by the almighty. i agree with you that the bible is full of contradictions as it came about from many writers with various perspectives which were later looked through--some dispelled as apocrapha and others rejected completely, and some few which actually got incorporated into the canon. as such it does not have much literary value; however a classical novel or poem should have a consistent theme to it in which the writer proves a perspective. my advise is to read literature and philosophy for truth, disgard the bible, and never take a look at popular literature like the davinci code which is worse than the bible because it distorts it for the purpose of confusing readers about the story of cohesion only for the purpose of earning the reader high royalties sin of various kinds is accepted in society all over the place. acceptance by people doesn't mean acceptance by god. i don't think you should assume everything in the bible to be literally truth. all of the following religions are practiced in china 

1heaven worship 
2 buddhism
3 taoism 
4 islam 
5 christianity 
6 judaism 
7 recent sects 
 .....falun gong 
 ..... way of former heaven

buddhists 8%, with more than 200,000 monks and nuns. this value is seen as extremely low because there are more than 16,000 buddhist temples that do not maintain traditional congregations. 

taoists, unknown as a percentage, there are more than 25,000 taoist monks and nuns at more than 1,500 temples. taoist belief is often intertwined with both buddhism and traditional folk religions. 

muslims, 1.4%, with more than 45,000 imams. other estimates are much higher. 

protestant christians, 1.2% with official churches. it is estimated that another 2.5% of the population is a protestant christian worshipping through an unofficial house church. 

catholic christians, 6% with official churches, and the vatican claims up to another 10% who are catholics attending catholic services at underground churches. 

it should be noted, however, that statistics relating to buddhism and religious taoism are to some degree incomparable with statistics for islam and christianity. this is due to the traditional chinese belief system which blends confucianism, buddhism, and taoism, so that a person who follows a traditional belief system would not necessarily identify him- or herself as either buddhist or taoist, despite regularly attending buddhist or taoist places of worship.

most people report no organized religious affiliation; however, belief in folk traditions and non-religious spiritual beliefs, such as ancestor worship and feng shui, along with informal ties to local temples and unofficial house churches is in the hundreds of millions.