Living in New York can a test to one's sanity. This city might just be the worst part of earth to be a Christian or a believer regardless of religion or faith. I'll list a few reasons why.
1. People (myself included much too many times) are rude and annoying to others. For example, in the subway you can be surrounded by nice people, idiots, thieves, murderers or any type of individual you can think of. The same is true in the streets, work and pretty much everywhere in the city. You never really know how others would react provoked or not hence you need to remain in a constant defensive mode.
2. Winter is brutal (5°F in the coldest of winter with winds up to 30 mph) and summer can be even worse (105°F with 100% humidity). Temperatures go from one extreme to the other. As the weather is right now (92°F on 05/26/2010, too early for this weather; http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KNYC/2010/5/26/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA), it seems this year will more brutal than others. This makes a big number of people wear as little as possible during summer -- next to nothing leaving very little to the imagination or barely covering themselves.
3. Drugs, alcohol and other vices are also everywhere. It's hard to raise a child here, but not impossible. It's just a matter of supervision and trust. As a parent, you must do to everything possible not to allow your children to lose the naive (practically blind) trust that as little children they had in you.
The whole environment of the city is toxic and can sure test a person's will and/or faith. You either think about having sex with the semi-nude inhabitants (above #2) or punching the idiots in the face (above #1). I often fall on the second group.
Nonetheless, if you were to ask my friends or me, we wouldn't want to live anywhere else. Needless to say, most of my friends are good people and spiritual, but just a few go to church or temple. Then again as I've mentioned, it's hard to be 100% Christian (good, loving, godly, etc) in this city.
