Islam, Christianity, and the Rest of the Holy Circus

Religion: the original scam. Long before Bitcoin, NFTs, or “buy my course,” there was the priest telling peasants, “Give us your money, obey our rules, and you’ll get your reward after you die. No refunds.” It was the medieval equivalent of paying for Wi-Fi that only works in the afterlife.

Christianity had a good run as history’s favorite control system. The Inquisition? Medieval waterboarding with bonus fire. The Crusades? Group tours to the Middle East where you kill people for Jesus and come home with exotic rugs. They even convinced entire populations that poverty was virtuous — mostly so the Church could keep all the gold.

But in the modern “Most Likely to Ruin a Civilization” category, Islam has been working overtime to take the crown. Still running on a 7th-century Bedouin beta version, it comes with all the best medieval features: women as livestock, free speech as a capital offense, and laws that read like they were written by a man who was deeply offended by the concept of music.

You want to talk human rights? In too many Islamic countries, the right to education for girls is about as common as a unicorn with a driver’s…