The U.S. was founded by religious fundamentalists fleeing from Europe, and became the most prosperous country in the world. Mormons fled persecution in the midwest, settled in the harsh desert of Utah, and built a state that ranks near the top in happiness, upward mobility, and other social indicators. https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/mental-healt... https://www.forbes.com/sites/adammillsap/2023/12/22/utah-top.... Israel is full of very religious Jews, and has turned a tiny wedge of the middle east with no resources to speak of into a first world country.

So are only certain religions a hell of drug?

Or "religion isn't a hell of a drug" generally, and what you're actually seeing is due to underlying cultural traits.

At least in the present case those "cultural traits" are definitely closely related to a religion prevalent in the culture (Islam). Just read the AP piece. Saying otherwise is like saying Christianity had nothing to do with witch trials, or the crusades, or that the crimes committed under Nazism and communism had nothing to do with those ideologies, it was all just cultural traits...

For any Judeo/Christian supremacist, it is only the Mohammedans that are scum. Very much on brand.

I'm an atheist, and it indeed seems that Islam is particularly bad among all the religions. Its religious extremism is often similar to Christianity during the middle ages.

You can just look what religious policies countries tend to enact where Islam is the majority religion. And no, believing that not all religions are equally good or bad has nothing to do with Goebbels.

Please don't post religious flamewar comments to HN. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

I realize others are doing it too, but you did it repeatedly in this thread.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm not sure this is the great retort that you think it is. Current Christian fundamentalism in the US looks every bit as insane from here as Islamic fundamentalism does in the Middle East.

As someone from Muslim country, that's a crock of shit. Have you ever been to Utah? It's lovely. You want to tell me that's the same as Pakistan? I don't believe you, I have eyes.

Do Atheist know they take that drug too?

Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents, no matter how provocative a story may be.

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."

"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Apologies dang. I've now blocked the reply box / links in my default browser so that there's extra hoops to jump through before I can reply. I should now actually engage my brain a bit better before doing so.