That's stretching way too far. "Apocalyptic fables" was obviously a religious putdown. People aren't allowed to smear each other's religions on HN because it leads to some of the nastiest, dumbest, and most repetitive internet threads. It should be obvious from https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html why we don't want that.

I'd still assert that "fables" is merely inaccurate, but I will accept this can be a matter of opinion. However you just quoted "apocalyptic fables" as though describing it as apocalyptic were somehow relevant to the negative connotation. Book of Revelation isn't just any apocalyptic literature, it's prototypical of the genre.[1] Apocalypse is the literally a Greek-derived word for revelation.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalyptic_literature

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation

I know where the word apocalypse comes from. It doesn't change the point: "apocalyptic fables" was obviously a religious putdown, and those are not cool on HN.

I was writing up a sibling reply and then caught the last word of the flagged statement. Using "fables" is dismissive and contentious.

I agree with the assessment but perhaps if it was phased as:

"Yes, because they believe that they need to be on the side of Israel for their anticipated apocalypse."

Or something like that. Unfortunately "people of faith" tend to take any sort of criticism of the mechanics of their faith as a personal attack. Pity.

> Unfortunately "people of faith" tend to take any sort of criticism of the mechanics of their faith as a personal attack.

An unavoidable consequence of any belief system which assigns significant personal reward upon faith, because criticism of faith places their personal reward into question. More unfortunate is how secular institutions are unintentionally rewarding people of faith for having a thin skin by so eagerly accepting it as a signal to quash criticism. I'd argue that nothing "tramples curiosity" quite so much as the systemic disappearance of criticism in the public square.