Faith

I went to church with my mom today. For the sake of full disclosure, I should say that it was a Baptist church. It was a weird experience for me. On the one hand, I don't really object to about 90% of what's being said. I believe in God (as a Baha'i, I think my position on this is pretty clear), that it's awesome to be a good person and to treat others well, and that more often then not, people who are religious tend to me nice. On the other hand, and maybe this is the debater in my that can't sit still while someone's talking without mentally attacking all the weaker points in their argument, I was able to recognize that there are plenty of religious people who aren't that nice.

Pretend for a second you are about to be set up on a blind date. You have two choices: A) a smart, successful, attractive person who has similar interests and hobbies as you, and B) a smart, successful, attractive person who has similar interests and hobbies as you would describe themselves as very religious. Chuck Klosterman offers this same hypothetical about "extremely patriotic" people, and I think it's a very similar analogy and that the results would probably be similar--the vast majority of people I know, of my close friends, would immediately choose person A. Now, I am patriotic and religious, and I would still choose person A, too, because, for a variety of reasons, my knee-jerk reaction is to be uncomfortable around religious people.