Years ago, a friend showed me a book by Bertrand Russell entitled "Why I Am Not a Christian". He and I both agreed it should have been titled "Why I Am Not a Catholic". He was an absolutely brilliant mathematician, but his understanding of Christian doctrine was poor. It's a frequent trap of highly intelligent people; they think if they're brilliant in one area, it extends to everything.
I used to frequent a religion board which, over time, had actually become an atheist board. Most of the posters were decidedly against religion but what really became obvious is that they all vigorously hated *Christianity* and especially, fundamentalist self-righteous Bible thumpers. No matter how I discussed matters with them, theological arguments usually gave ground to charges of hypocrisy, self-righteousness, bigotry, hatred and so on.
It was clearly evident they all shared negative experiences at the hands of such people, either directly or indirectly. They NEVER had anything to say about Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism or any of dozens of other religions, except to lump them all together every time they got p!ssed off. Thread after thread dealt with Robertson, Falwell, Southern Baptists, Catholics - never a word about Quakers or Unitarians or Mennonites or what have you. If they assailed Catholics, it was the Pope or the Inquisition or the Crusades - never a word against Mother Theresa and the like.
I guess what I'm leading to is that in my experience, when people have such animosity towards "religion", it's usually a personal issue with unresolved anger. Change the subject at hand and a few stereotypes, and it could sound like raging bigotry. When people rant against religion as violent, I might ask them about violent terrorist Buddhists or Quakers.
What's strange is although I spent close to ten years in a fundamentalist cult, I've also never met people more kind, gentle or generous than among religious persons. Every group has its pompous jerks - you don't even need to be religious to have that. But my experience with religious persons has been mostly favorable. I guess I've seen a lot of sides to it. In the final analysis, it's hard to fault "religion" when people are claiming to be religious but not actually doing it.
By experiencing another's religion, you can understand and possibly appreciate their religious views.
I won't sacrifice my views and beliefs for another person, and I wouldn't expect anyone to do the same for me, so it stands to reason that I'd choose to be in a relationship with someone that shared my views. Luckily I don't have to worry about that. 