If people are commiting horrific stuff based on "some special fairy tale" that fairy tale has surely got to be real damn compelling. Wonder what in it might be so powerful.

Based on a tendency for stupidity and fanaticism that would find alternative inspiration if it didn’t have access to a copy of the Bible. Besides, I doubt the average evangelical nutcrack has read all of the books in the Bible, let alone done so in a historical, comparative perspective (which was the whole point of my original comment).

As with any ideological extreme, it usually doesn’t come from reading too much. Make the Bible vanish (the dozens of books included in that plural, from the cosmology of the first books of the Old Testament to the philosophy of Ecclesiastes) and a dumbed down, alternative monotheistic pamphlet would take its place, with all the prejudice and none of the literary quality. If you think we are “too advanced” in “2023” to come up with something as stupid as the worst in the Bible, but also gray and prosaic, just look at the average enlightened netizen interpreting my original comment as “using Greek mythology to justify oppressing people”. As if the so much of the Bible didn’t share roots with Greek mythology, and so much of the New Testament wasn’t Greek philosophy recycled. 8th grade understanding of Ancient history.