While I agree that faith and religion can be separate, I for one don't believe in sitting in church every Sunday, that doesn't mean all interpretations of religion mock faith.
I often use this example but my grandmother sitting in a pew once a week praying for others, giving money to local charities and hanging a cross in her room certainly isn't a mockery of faith.
I personally don't see any of that having any real-world effects, beyond the donations, because it's not something I believe in, but she's not cheapening what faith stands for, it's just her way of celebrating her faith.
That´s the point. She´s celebrating her faith not her religion.
Getting on television and 'healing' people and shit or preaching a certain faith because it's popular 'with a demographic of voters' or even claiming your church has a artifact with some Saint's blood on it is.
But that's them and not everyone believes in that. While I agree there is a thin line, just like aethist wacko's that proudly mock religion get the spotlight in media, so do religious freaks that don't stand for anything most people of faith carry.
Which is why I get miffed when people give off the, "Oh yeah, religion is bad, just ask Wikipedia and my favorite band.", attitude.
Well my statement wasn´t based on Wikipedia and the like but on what I personally believe to be true. I myself deeply believe in god and it saddens me to see that so many people don´t do but that´s another story.
The point is, that faith is a thing between god and yourself. That "dialog" should actually result in critic self-reflexions aiming to do your best to make yourself a better person. However in the way how it´s constituted (sp?) clearly aims to erase the critic self-reflexion and tells you directly what to do. The dangers of that are that if you´re naive enough your faith in god will make you follow a road that actually leads the opposite way.
That´s why my generalization was just aimed at religion as an institution but never against religious people. Hope I got that across.