The churches formed in the old world served the purpose of creating stability and giving multitiudes of people a banner to form under. By stabilizing the policital and social world, and by emphasizing of serving a "god" it made sure that humans would work together and thus we would advance as a species. These view eventually began to conflict with the very advancements that they brought about, Gallileo was a devout Catholic, and yet was put under house arrest by the Chrch for his Dialogue. Since then science has been beating down religious fundamentalists with things like the theories of evolution, the biological esplanation for what they would call a "soul" and many other things.Â
The Church served it's purpose, it has gotten us this far, but now it is standing in the way of further adcancements. I do not say that morals are no longer needed, only that teh conservatives have lost their power for a reason. The world is moving on. If ou think that the Big Bang was a pie in the Churhcs face I will tell you that the Pope actually SUPPORTED the theory because it made Genesis a reality.
On to the talk on the sects and on the books, the Christian Bible is made up of the 4 books of teh Torah, and the New Testament, random smaller sects add their own doctrine to the mix.