2D Religious Belief

How people approach religion goes well beyond whether they believe in the supernatural or don't. Here's a more detailed perspective:

I'm sure you can get into a lot more detail than that, but at least this gives a continuum: a 1-7 scale of belief:

But, as with any viewpoint, I find there are at least two components: (1) your perspective, and (2) how much you care about the topic. 

I think some people tend to still see religious views as kind of one-dimensional anyway. Maybe religiosity correlates to passion, so people think of it something like this:

Or maybe certainty correlates to passion, so people think of it like this:

Personally, I don't find either of those quite right (although I think the 2nd one is closer to the truth than the 1st). I think it's more like this:

I've met strong atheists who are very passionate on the subject, and de-facto theists who don't seem to put much thought into it at all. Personally I'd say usually I'm somewhere between Pure Agnostic and Weak Atheist, and probably about two notches up toward the Care Passionately side. And I've noticed that I tend to be more satisfied with people on the Care Passionately side almost no matter where they are on the belief scale, compared to Strong Theists, Strong Atheists, and everyone in between that tends toward Completely Indifferent. 

Although, come to think of it, I don't think I've personally met a Strong Theist who is Completely Indifferent. I suppose that makes sense. If you're 100% sure there isn't a god, you probably have less reasons to care about religious belief at all. If you're 100% sure there is a god, you may have a lot of reason to care about what that means in your life.

And then of course there's one more factor you can add to just about any topic: are you able to discuss it in a respectful way, or are you a jackass about it?

I was going to say there seems to be some correlation between how much people care and how much they act like jackasses, but I immediately thought of several exceptions, both theists and atheists. I suspect the respectful/jackass scale is more a function of personality than passion.

So really my favorite people to talk to are going to be anyone on the Respectful and Care Passionately end, but anywhere along the belief scale.