Faith And Religion

I have often wondered what makes a person say he is a staunch believer in God. Religion and the very existence of God has been debated over the millennia but at the end of everything its only a matter of individual faith and belief. But what astonishes me the most is fanaticism about religion where a person of one faith refuses to acknowledge the existence of another faith or considers his own religion superior to any other.

I have felt the hatred for each other's religion in my own circles and due to my own beliefs, in time I have distanced myself from such people. But there is still one question which keeps coming back to me, is it worth fighting over religion? What makes one religion superior to another? Monotheism, number of followers or should I say blind faith. For all the religious books that I have read through trying to find an answer to my question I have found the same things repeating time and again; love,faith and tolerance.

The famous teaching of Christ:'love thy neighbour as you love thyself'. Is this applicable only when your neighbour is a Christian?

I have tried to remain secular all my life but after what I see around me Im beginning to question my own attitude towards secularism and actually finding it to be a largely misused word.

I have heard the most ridiculous things in the name of religion:
one Christian ex-friend says that her acquaintance lost his job because he made the mistake of walking into the Tirupati temple. On the other hand this very ex-friend would expect me to walk into a church with her if we ever came across one but herself would never step into a temple.
Another one says that she will not go against her God and walk into a temple. Thats when I asked her, much to her anonyance if Christ had forbade them to do so; because I never found any such thing in the Bible.
One says that she will not read any other book other than the Bible because if she does so it will amount to sinning.

Coming from a mixed family I certainly found all this quite strange. I was used to seeing Dussera and Christmas being celebrated with the same fervour in my house. I remember waiting to get my hands on the Easter eggs and Diwali sweets alike. I have had neighbours celebrating Diwali with us and we in turn celebrated Christmas and Easter with them. But never did I feel the difference of religions, it always felt like a huge family celebrating a particular festival.
I spent three years observing the fanatics of religion during my college years and the irony of the whole situation is that in the fervour of remaining faithful to their God and religion alike, they had forgotten the very essence of every religion:love,faith,and tolerance.