"We need to get rid of all religion, it's evil and backwards."
I am for tolerance, so I would definitely like to get rid of the intolerance that religion breeds in society.
But, I couldn't care less about what people believe in. If a person believes in fairies, or UFOs or ghosts or monsters or gods or string theory or multiverse...
It doesn't really bother me.
"I'd never date/be good friends with a religious person, they're all morons."
I'm not sure what beliefs have to do with friendship, maybe this person can't respect religious people? Friendships require respect. "Moron" is the wrong term.
Belief isn't related to intelligence, just a epistemology standpoint. Me, I am very analytical, I need evidence, facts and then create conclusions (beliefs) of knowledge based on that. Other people go with intuition or trust in what others tell them. But reconciling existence and life is difficult at the best of times, no-one has all the answers.
I've been reading a book, "Quantum Leap", it discusses the people behind the major breakthroughs in Quantum Physics, Bohr, Plank, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Einstein, etc. It goes into their history, whom they were, where they came from, who they worked with, their major publishings, the scientific reaction to these publishings. I found it quite interesting. There is a lot of belief in science. These scientists come up with a model that accurately fits the observed measurements. Their models often have a visualisation aspect e.g. Bohr's circular orbits of electrons around the nucleus of an atom. Scientists then believe in that visualisation. When someone else comes up with a new theory that also fits the observed measurements but is contradictory to the believed visualisation, it gets a lot of initial distain, and disbelief. It takes years for scientists to change their thinking (their beliefs) to come to accept the new theories.
Einstein for the most part was good at accepting new theories, if they meet the observed measurements then he wouldn't simply throw them away due to his current beliefs.
"If my partner became religious, I'd leave them."
Conditional love, are we all so fickle? or is this an emotional bluff, a gut reaction in the anger/denial stage of discovering new contradictory information, a feeling of betrayal, of being lied to, of being deceived?
"Someone tried to tell me about Jesus and I got so pissed off. It ruined my day."
Your emotional state is based on other people's believes or expressions of their beliefs?
"ALL theists are (insert generalization here). I can't stand them!"
All theists are believers in god/s, they don't need empirical evidence to support their god beliefs...