throughout jesus' life, the only thing he ever reacted to in either a judgemental way or angrily, was religion. he got angry enough with the people in the temple, whowere persecuting the poor and stopping people coming to god, that he whipped them and kicked them out the temple. indeed there are plenty of examples where jesus calls people hypocrites, for demanding rules and not following them themselves. surely this is because, as none of us are perfect, and such religous rules cannot be followed entirely, and as such we must live in god's grace and not religious judgement.
religion is a system of beliefs from which a rountine is based. religion is a list of absolute laws from which you have no choice. the bible, at least from what i've read and understand, is the promotion of choice. indeed when jesus says "do unto others as you do unto them", and that the whole of the jewish law is summed up into the first two commandments, love god and love your neighbour, there seems to be an immense amount of freedom with this. personally, i believe this was the intent of jesus' life. the purpose of his life. the jewish context was where sin had to be transferred from themselves to an animals - thorugh killing it. jesus became the ultimate sacrifice and in doing so, well to put in jesus' words - "i have come not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it". in other words, he has abolished religion in place of a relationship.
in a previous post someone gave their experience of a woman who cut in line at a store, saw her pentagon (or some other sign of the occult or wiccan - something that dientified her as a witch), and had a go at her, screaming all the while, "Jesus loves you". this, i believe, to be religion, in that you are forcing other people to conform to it, not out of love, as jesus did, but out of fear. in other words people are forced to believe, don't understand why, and as a result as soon as they are questioned or begin to question themselves, they find no substance. belief is a chioce, religion doesn't have to be - as a result they often become prejudiced to anything the world sees as religion, because of their own experience of religion. christianity is not a religion, but purely a relationship. if everything was based on religion - "an eye for an eye", a list of rules which must be obeyed or you're punished, than taking the example of king david, he would be remembered as a sexually immoral murderer. his actions in effectively killing the husband of a woman he liked the look of, would be seen as disgustingly immoral. only his relationship with god allowed his forgiveness. i think this is a prime example of how we are not human doings, but human beings. in a religion, your actions count as everything, whereas a relationship is based on who you are. in a religion therefore, your actions define who you are, whereas your personality, etc. defines who you are in a relationship. this is not to say that you can do whatever you want, and you will be forgiven, indeed the opposite, you must love god and your neighbour, but of course this takes time, it is not something easily acquired, but takes effort - but then the rewards are greater for something which takes more effort. indeed if you love god and your neighbour (this defined as all of humanity in the parable of the good samaritan), than you will want the best for them. throuhg lvoving god, if he is your "counsellor", "rock", or any other adjective from the bible, than you will know what the best is, and therefore loving your neighbour, will result in you wanting the best for them. put the to together and you will know what the best is, and want the best for people.
my point is that religion judges, whereas a relationship forgives. to wrap up a very long-winded post a religioin is based on rules, which you are judged by. as none can attain to the levels god demands, we are all subject to god's grace. indeed when jesus says "you will be judged by the measure you judge by", surely then if you judge other people based on these rules, you are indeed as jesus says "hypocrites" when he saw these situations. this is not to say that you are bad people, indeed that would be judging again, so perhaps it is fair to say then you can judge the action but not the person, in that you can say the action is wrong but the person is precious. indeed this seems the message of much of jesus' works, in that each person is so valuable to god that jesus would have died to save each and every individual. therefore to go back tot he other example of the woman who was screaming "jesus loves you", indeed jesus loves everyone, but he loved them and gave them a choice. he gave them advice, and didn't force himself on others. indeed in the whole of his life, the bible reports only three instances where he directly answered the questions. jesus wasn't interested in answers, he was interested in people. so perhaps we should then take his approach, in that when he was faced with an adulterous woman (indeed the man was left alone by the religious people - interesting), but when faced with adultery, something that the law defined as deserving of being stoned to death, jesus says "he who has not sinned castt he first stone". indeed there was someone present who fell into that category, but jesus never threw a stone. he forgave.