Africa would be a heck of a lot more messed up without donations from many Christian charity groups, who have built schools, donated livestock, and given much famine and leprosy/disease relief. This comes from many denominations and different religions. Non-believers have also played a huge role in charitable concerns too.
God is not responsible for AIDS, cancer or people getting stoned and burning their house down or dying from a smack overdose. These are mostly brought on by certain people and their own actions (i.e. you smoked 2 packs of cigarettes per day for 30 years and die of lung cancer) or natural phenomenons/disasters. If, according to the Bible, God did not intervene in saving his own son from a cruel death, why would God intervene on the failings of regular people.
Bad people use bad interpretations of religion for their own self interests. The mainstream churches are mostly promoting care, compassion, love, tolerance and diversity and not fuelling people up for Holy Wars.
Wacko rent a churches, as found increasingly in the Western World are a different story and they are what make for good TV. The cults and communes who need to be controversial to be heard make sure they grab the media attention with stupid stuff like those weirdo snake handling churches where some numpty often gets bitten by a venomous viper and ends up dead or in hospital and then is cast out as a 'sinner' and the David Koresh's of this world and racist paranoid views. Many (but not all, some are genuine believers and promote good values) Evangelists are a cash grab using religion as a front. It's rare you see a poor TV evangelist (unless they blew it all on coke and gay hookers on many trips to Vegas).
Yet, this represents a minority of Christian followers in the developed World, although growing at an alarming rate. Most people at my Church just go for some inner peace, to socialize a little and to decompress a bit from the stresses of life. You don't need religion to do this, but it works for some. Many people here are knocking it without having tried it. You should try it out for a while and then you can knock it from a more enlightened and valid position if nothing else
