If they’d died in the Saudi heat to a secular activity - at an F1 race event or inside a poorly A/C’d movie theater or trapped on an overheated bus - would that have been better?

What a ridiculous statement. No it wouldn’t be better, but when was the last time you heard of nearly a thousand people dying at an F1 race event, or inside a movie theatre due to lack of AC? If that were happening multiple times per year we would shut down F1 /movie theaters in a heartbeat.

Fact is that the Hajj claims thousands of lives every year, all in the name of religion.

Which is a shame, because the Hajj as a cultural event was originally intended as this class-agnostic unifying practice social event. You aren’t supposed to visit these holy sites encapsulated into these exclusive expensive little bubbles. You’re intended to mingle with people from the rest of the world and revel in a certain shared experience common to the faith the world over.

Yea as long as you aren’t a woman.

Don’t be surprised that people are using religion to grift the gullible and exploit the poor - that’s what religion is best at.

The Saudi government has an ethical responsibility to mitigate the risks. It’s not like this was some freak accident. This was entirely predictable and this will defiantly continue to happen until protections are put into place.

Such senseless loss of life in the name of religion.

If they’d died in the Saudi heat to a secular activity - at an F1 race event or inside a poorly A/C’d movie theater or trapped on an overheated bus - would that have been better?

Well I think religion is one of the few things you can get enough uneducated/dedicated people to die in the hundreds from heat stroke without people being like"I should probably leave"

All the examples you gave, of course except being trapped on a bus, people would realize there is a serious issue and start leaving once the first handful of people died.

“I’m not leaving the theater till I see the end of Iron man 2, I don’t care that half the theaters dead and I’m next!”

EDIT

the Hajj as a cultural event was originally intended as this class-agnostic unifying practice social event.

lol, weren’t women not allowed to go alone until recently or still?

Not following the point you are trying to make.

According to traditional sources, Aisha was six or seven years old when betrothed to Muhammad,[94][95][96][97] with the marriage being consummated when she reached the age of nine or ten years old whilst she still played with dolls.[98][b] In the commentary of the Sahih Bukhari it is written that, “Playing with dolls is forbidden in Islam, but it was allowed for Aisha at that time, as she did not yet reach the age of puberty.”[106] Beginning in the early twentieth century, Christian polemicists and orientalists attacked what they deemed to be Muhammad’s deviant sexuality, for having married an underage[c] girl; acute condemnations came from the likes of Harvey Newcomb and David Samuel Margoliouth while others were mild, choosing to explain how the “heat of tropics” made “girls of Arabia” mature at an early age.[108][114] While most Muslims defended the traditionally accepted age of Aisha with vigor emphasizing on cultural relativism, the political dimensions of the marriage, Aisha’s “exceptional qualities” etc., some — Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad in Egypt and others[d] — chose to re-calculate the age and fix it at late adolescence as a tool of social reform in their homelands or even, mere pandering to different audiences.[108][115][e]

In the late-twentieth century and early twenty-first century, opponents of Islam have used Aisha’s age to accuse Muhammad of pedophilia, as well as explain a reported higher prevalence of child marriage in Muslim societies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Muhammad

Don’t get me started on the current Muslim practices…

Before you start spazzing… this aint Islam specific as we can see Catholic church is notorious pedo org too.

With that being said, I am sorry bad facts hurts your feelz dear.

Somewhere? You mean IN this very article.