I find it interesting you find it interesting, when I also narrowed the field down to say this is an American problem, and in context it's a right wing political issue more that's perverted religion, but whatever.

Not random at all. Jews were persecuted wherever they went. So in groups and out groups are very important to religious jews even a hundred years ago. Religious communities cohere when they have an outside group to scapegoat their problems off onto. It's been going on in most all places since people started worshipping the sun and moon........

Is that also why in America the heavily religious also love clinging to their guns, sticking up for people who shoot unarmed people of color, love telling women and gays how to live and mandate that in law, who want nothing more than their nation to invade Muslim counties and bomb them into oblivion, or that they want to corrupt education to spread their ideological disease? Because they're happy and tenacious people?

Religions, Judaism more than most others, fosters in group, out group thinking. Xenophobia might have been an adaptive advantage to early religious communities. Today? Not at all.

I wouldn't call it lax in general, just more so than it was when I joined. This place is predominantly pc and you can see it with some more prominent members but I don't think people are getting moderated for having different opinions...well I hope not.

Lax rules? At this point I think a lot of users will disagree with that and claim that's smoke and mirrors.

yeah, that's because the more intelligent you are, the less happy you tend to be. As they say, "Ignorance is bliss."

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150413-the-downsides-of-being-clever

http://www.thecrimson.com/column/who-what-and-wyatt/article/2013/2/22/Wyatt-depression/