At left we see illustrated the core problem with the world’s theistic religions, i.e., that adherents are so certain of the rightness of their beliefs that they have no problem destroying the world.

FWIW, I have a friend who takes this even further: he is actively rooting for the apocalypse, and the prospect that all believers in God’s son Jesus will be raptured up to heaven to sit at the right hand of God.

He knows that I don’t believe any of this, but he remains confident that I’ll come around.  As he told me, “God melts even the hardest of hearts.”  He thinks I’m doing the devil’s work with my compassion for others and the effort I put out to achieve a peaceful and sustainable civilization.

We’d be living in tough times even without these fanatics, but religious dogma, especially of this sort, makes it all that much more difficult.

JD Vance and His Certainty Re: God’s Work