I live by one rule- leave the world better than you came into it...

An excellent creed. If only we all lived by it.

I think religious studies, from a secular point-of-view, is a fascinating area. The question of just exactly who Jesus was, what he really did, etc, can be quite interesting.

But you're absolutely right, looking at who Mohammed or (insert favorite religious figure here) really was is also worthy of study.

Quite frankly if you read the bible, God is worse than Saddam by many orders of magnitude...

Yeah, the Bible, taken literally, is quite the gruesome horror story. Especially the Old Testament. I've always considered it one of the earliest works of "speculative fiction," but one which has unfortunately gotten rather out of control. The same could be said of the Koran, I suppose.