Like many posters here, I also judge a religion based on how it treats it followers and how it treats those who aren't it's followers.
Some ideas and beliefs seem (key word: SEEM) sillier than others and we all judge them based on what makes sense to us, but at the end of the day, people might be judging our beliefs, or lack of beliefs, the same way. So it all becomes a wash really.
The only thing you can qualitatively judge is how the religion (and perhaps the organization behind it) treats it's followers and treats others.
As well, as far as beliefs go, in every religion you find a gamut of believers. Believers who believe the old stories and teachings to the letter, and others who look for modern inspiration in the teachings, taking them more as stories to live by. It's hard to judge a whole religion, when within it, people have many different beliefs.
So I guess, legitimacy to me, is based on the actions of a group, and not it's beliefs. Because none of us have the full story yet, none of us are really SIGNIFICANTLY any closer to the answer than anyone else. So while some ideas make more logical sense, or make more spiritual sense, or make more scientific sense, no one idea is so far in front of the others that one can say with pride or conviction (at least without being an absolute jerk in my opinion) that 'this' is was it legitimate, and 'this' is what's silly.
However, when you start seeing what a religion or group is doing to it's people and to the world, like Scientology, or the most conservative 'Muslim' groups and yes even a few 'Christian' groups, then you can start to see cult like behavior and safely label it as 'illegitimate' religion.
(I quoted those religions because those groups that I talk about that abuse them, only masquerade as them, they obviously ignore some of the most important teachings and many would be quick to point out that then, they aren't really Muslim or Christian and only give the religion a bad name. However, one has to understand that is what they are rooted in and therefore in the discussion the names are important and accurate.)
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