I don't think this belongs on Hacker News. It's an issue worth discussion, but it's an a category of general controversial news that gets plenty of discussion elsewhere. Also there is no technical, scientific, or engineering context to it.
Anything as prominent in humanity and history as religion is certainly that. However, flamewars destroy intellectual interest (put bluntly, they're predictable, nasty and dumb), and it's nearly impossible for a large community to discuss religion without religious flamewar (the most predictable, nastiest, and dumbest of all flamewar). That's unfortunately the other issue with stories like this, besides the run-of-the-mill controversy that you correctly point out.
The article was a concrete instance of the abstract dilemma i posed in my comment, so it was on-topic and necessary imho.
either way, your home your rules, so whatever. (which, ironically, confirms my original point...)