Since when is personal spirituality a bad thing?

I'm very fortunate to have friends and family who have strong, personal spirituality; we've all come from very different backgrounds - Catholic, Jewish, atheist, Buddhist, Neo-Pagan - and come to similar places. There is the fable of the blind monks examining an elephant, each one claiming to have discovered a tree, a hose, a fan, a rock, etc. We're all monks, but have admitted that we are blind and that our interpretations cover only a portion of what there is - indeed, only a portion is really what humans can hope to achieve.

After graduating in May, the only fundamentalist, evangelical, super-conservative religious folk I saw/heard were the ones online and easily shut off. Their utter rejection of science, compassion, acceptance, and secular society disgusts me. Instead I bit my tongue as some atheists wrote/said that people who believe in God/whatever might as well believe in the Tooth Fairy. After all, these people understand that science is necessary and that theocracies are A BAD IDEA so what does it matter that my timid spiritual statements get brushed aside?

And now I have coworkers who believe that, without ever having read it, the Bible is 100% factual. These fundamentalists have as much influence over me as the evangelizing atheists: however much I allow them to influence me. Because we live in a very diverse, secular society, nobody will ever get all that we spiritually want but we will get what we need: the ability to practice in private. Which is as it should be: PRIVATE.

I't just so strange to me that the two extremes who hate each other so much would act so similarly towards someone in the middle...but I'd still take science and secular living over theocratic insanity.