Foreword: this is more of a rant than anything. if you want to try to answer any of the questions please do. i have a hard time figuring things out having only been on one side of the problem. just know i might ramble a bit. some of it might be completely irrelevant or otherwise unintelligible.
more specifically, why do people go crazy when you mention religion? it's like believing in a religion automatically makes you an awful person. speaking from experience openly being a Christian does nothing but make people look at you like there's a fish growing out of your head. I'm not an orthodox christian at all. in fact, if i don't tell people i'm a Christian they'll never know it, but the second i do mention it people get a little uncomfortable. and it's far worse on the internet(see every youtube video ever). but i'd really like to know why. sure some people are extremists like ISIS, or Westboro Baptist, but that isn't indicative of every Muslim and Christian. they're a small minority that the rest of the religious world scorns. is it just that the only people who make the news are the extremists? i guess if that's the case i can understand it. that doesn't make it okay, but at least it's a reason. and if that is the case, how should we(people who follow any religion in general)go about getting around the misconceptions caused by smaller groups of crazies? i know that people will always have an idea of a religious person in their head that will never go away, but is there a way to add an image that's less of a stereotype without it being mixed with the original image? there are so many stereotypes about religion i won't even try to list any, but i'm sure some of you know them as well. it could be that this is part of the collective subconscious at this point in which case i suppose it's a waste of time to think about it, but i can't help but think that it's stupid. it's a waste of time and energy to care what someone else believes, and yet people constantly try to say that i'm wasting my time by believing in a God that may or may not exist. personally i think it's far more likely that the universe was created rather than just happening. mathematically speaking the chances of time playing out as it did are infinitely close to zero. not to mention that fact that i'm not hurting anyone. sure other people are hurting each other over their religion, but that has nothing to do with their religion. it's just those people that should be held responsible.
and now that i'm done ranting: half of those questions are impossible to answer. you can give an opinion or a theory, but that's all it'll be since half of the questions are just speculation anyway. i just needed to get that out really. i was reading the comments on a youtube video for whatever reason and just extremely frustrated with the way people were acting.