What else is like religion?

Ok, so this is probably gonna be a rough draft for a while, so if it seems rough, or incomplete, that's why. Feel free to bounce ideas back at me, disagree, etc.

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So I was watching a clip of the new Real World show today, recommended to me by a couple friends. Apparently, one of the characters kinda reminded them of me. Must me the tall black thing. Anyways, there were a couple castmembers discussing their faiths and whatnot, and somehow it came to ask Ty what his opinion was of it (or he just offered). He said that there were good things that church did, but the fact is that their god was not real. This of course set off a couple of the cast members, saying he shouldn't say those things, that he even didn't have a right to, etc.

While I'm sure I (accidentally) can come off like an asshole, I've not been afraid to speak my mind about those things. It's certainly led to some good conversations in the past. But one thing I certainly noticed (and remember from my theistic days) is that people, upon hearing that you don't share their faith, or find their faith to be false, get personally offended. If you were to come out against something else they believe in, like gravity, you'd just be met with incredulity. But in this case, they felt personally attacked when told they were wrong. It seems as if their faith is bolstered by others sharing their faith.

I remember a similar feeling, and I remember thinking to myself when I encountered it that it was pretty odd. What other part of our lives do we silently demand the agreement of others? If I come out stating that I believe cars run better on grapejuice than gasoline, people might try to make sure they heard me correctly, then move on. Only a small sliver of any group of people would get riled up about it. It seems that people, while claiming great faith, even so much as that they know their beliefs are true like any other fact, really have high hopes they're right. It's only through their social network that their faith is reinforced, that they feel justified through the evidence of the number of believers, rather than a number of believers through the evidence.

So, to anyone reading this, what else do you (or people you personally know) get offended about when being told that your views are wrong, or people don't believe the same as you?