There's Something About Mario

It seems to be par for the course nowadays that the second an opinion is posted anywhere on the internet (ie Joystiq forums, /., and damn near any blog), there is an immediate backlash (usually ignorant) that starts a flame war. As far as I can tell, most of these digital arguments are over...video games. Try it, go ahead. Post something to the effect of "OMG NINTENDO IS TEH SUXXXORZ!!11" anywhere on Joystiq and wait for the whirlwind.
The surprise to me here is that this prety much exactly mirrors real life. I had always hoped in a vague way that, even with the anonymity of the internets, people could be civil to one another. And this, my friends, ranks up there pretty high on the list of "Top 100 Most Naive Thoughts Ever Thunk". Maybe even close to number one. There is no arena of human interaction where we will be civil to eachother for longer than it takes for one party to express an opinion. This is a fundamental aspect of humanity that bothers and intrigues me(another being the fact that I'm writing this with no hope of anyone reading it). Why are our "beliefs" (and i'm including opinions in that category) so important to us that we will, in some cases, fight to the death to protect them even if they are completely unprovable assumptions about the way the world works? And video games.