Here in Sydney, Australia, where I’ve been lecturing for a week, I may have had one Australian-born waitress or waiter, and one Australian-born taxi driver. As is my wont, I have been asking all my waiters, waitresses, and taxi drivers where they were born and, whenever possible, having some discussion about their native country.

I say “whenever possible” because, unlike in the United States, where taxi drivers, whether foreign- or American-born, are known for being talkative, in Sydney, apparently, the influence of the famous British reserve is still very much in evidence. I ask a driver where he was born, he responds, and the discussion is pretty much ended.

But the waiters and waitresses have been quite willing to talk, and one of these discussions was of particular interest.

It has been a terrific ice-breaker with just about every Iranian émigré I have ever met. Some laugh out loud; others immediately “correct” me, insisting that the Ayatollah is the last person anyone should ever study with; and others don’t know what to make of me.

Our young waitress laughed herself silly, and wondered how I ever learned such a phrase. I explained that I have numerous Iranian friends, living as I do in “Teherangeles” — the name Iranians in Los Angeles give to the largest Iranian community outside of Iran, and a name with which she, though living in Australia, was well familiar.

I asked Shakila if she was Muslim. She told me that though one could say she was a Muslim, she did not identify as such, and in fact she was an atheist.

She was not the first Muslim-born atheist from Iran I have met. And from what I am told, an entire generation of atheists has been produced by the Islamic Republic of Iran. How could it be otherwise?

Nothing produces atheists like despicable religious people. They do far more harm to religious faith than all the atheist writers and activists in the world put together.

Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, the ayatollahs, Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan, the Taliban, and all the other Islamist organizations actually decrease the number of believers in the world.

Over the course of time, people do not judge religions by their theology. Yes, some people convert to a religion thanks to its convincing theology. And many remain in a religion because of family ties, cultural norms, and sheer inertia. But over time, religion — and faith in God itself — is judged by its fruit. Which is how it should be.

And the best-known fruit of Islam today — in countries calling themselves Muslim, such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Taliban Afghanistan, and certainly among the Islamist groups mentioned above — is so ugly that many millions of people are increasingly repelled by religion and by God.

It is not entirely fair, since there are beautiful people in every religion whose goodness goes unreported. But, when the best-known actions of some of the most religious people in the world are kidnappings, slaughter, torture, mass murder, suicide bombings, beheadings, and mistreatment of women unparalleled in recorded history, then religion and faith in God suffer everywhere. Shakila is not alone. National Review.