Religion is a Mental Illness

At least 550 Muslims die at Hajj - as temperatures at Mecca hit 51.8C

Around 1.8 million Muslims were expected to travel to Saudi Arabia for the religious journey, where temperatures this year reached 51.8C in

Sky News

Around 1.8 million Muslims were expected to travel to Saudi Arabia for the religious journey, where temperatures this year reached 51.8C in the shade.

At least 550 people have died during the Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in the scorching heat, it has been reported.

Temperatures reached at least 51.8C (125F) in the shade in the Saudi Arabian city, as huge crowds of Muslims undertook the annual religious journey - one of the five pillars of Islam.

"Hajj is a difficult task, so you have to exert efforts and perform the rituals even in the conditions of heat and crowding," an Egyptian pilgrim said.

Pilgrims used umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun, as Saudi authorities warned pilgrims to stay hydrated and avoid being outdoors during the hottest hours between 11am and 3pm.

Stampedes, tent fires and other accidents have caused hundreds of deaths during the Hajj in the past 30 years. Some 240 people reportedly died last year.

This year's pilgrimage began on Friday and as usual coincided with the religious holiday, Eid al-Adha.

Dozens of deaths have been reported during this year's Hajj, with the AFP news agency putting the total at 550, citing diplomats.

Some 323 of the dead were Egyptians, most of whom perished due to heat related illness, AFP said.

A 2024 study by the Journal of Travel and Medicine found that rising global temperatures may outpace strategies to deal with the heat. A 2019 study by Geophysical Research Letters said that as temperatures rise in arid Saudi Arabia due to climate change, pilgrims performing Hajj will face "extreme danger".

A Saudi health official, speaking on Monday before many of the reports of deaths were issued, said authorities had not noticed any unusual fatalities among Muslim pilgrims amid the extremely high temperatures.

The ministry had so far treated more than 2,700 pilgrims who suffered from heat-related illness, he added.

One of the largest mass gatherings in the world, the Hajj is a once-in-a-lifetime duty for able-bodied Muslims who can afford it.

Every year hundreds of thousands of Muslims journey to the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad and of the religion of Islam.

The Great Mosque of Mecca - Masjid al-Haram - is home to the Kaaba. It is Islam's holiest site and the direction in which Muslims all over the world face when they pray.

More than 1.8 million pilgrims were expected to take part this year, according to the Saudi General Authority for Statistics.

"All gods are myths, all religions are lies, all faith is delusion."

Here we are, like mites on a plum. And the plum is this little planet and it goes around an insignificant local star, the sun.

And that star is on the obscure outskirts of an ordinary galaxy, the milky way, which contains 400 billion other stars.

And this galaxy is just one of something like 100 billion other galaxies that make up the universe.

And it is now beginning to look, this universe is one of an enormous number, maybe even an infinite number, of other closed off universes.

So the idea that we are central, that we are the reason there is a universe is… pathetic.

We have to simply come to grips with the real universe that we really live in. And if some of our myth and some of our religion is inconsistent with it, it's time to change the myth and the religion.

"There are no gods, no devils, no angels. No heaven or hell. There is only the natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds." -- Anne Nicol Gaylor

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Scientific beliefs are supported by evidence, and they get results.

Myths and faiths are not and do not."

-- Richard Dawkins

Reality Tip: If a story contains any element of magic… or something a LOT like magic… it's fantasy rolled in myth… and that story did not happen for realsies. Maybe some other version of the story… but not the magical version of the story.

“There is little, if anything, that is original in the teachings attributed to Jesus.

Like the myth of Jesus himself, the sentiments he expresses are a hodgepodge of aphorisms and moral convictions that can be found in the ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Buddhist, Confucian and Hindu religions.”

-- Joseph L. Daleiden

“Each Gospel author just makes Jesus say or do whatever they want.

They change the story as suits them and neglect to mention they did so. They craft literary artifices and symbolic narratives routinely. They frequently rewrite classical and biblical stories and just insert Jesus into them... the authors of the Gospels clearly had no interest in any actual historical data... these are thus not historians. They are mythographers; novelists; propagandists...

We have to stop thinking we can use them as historical sources.”

-- Richard Carrier

"If you make up a story that isn't true, handing it down over a number of centuries doesn't make it any truer!"

-- Richard Dawkins

“For most of the history of our species, we were helpless to understand how nature works. We took every storm, drought, illness and comet personally. We created myths and spirits in an attempt to explain the patterns of nature.”

-- Ann Druyan