First of all, I think your comment would have been more effective and to-the-point if you had left off your first paragraph.
Second, I'm surprised to see a regular contributor to Hacker news saying something like this:
> there are religious contributors to the site who may not enjoy being caricatured.
That seems like a poor reason to avoid saying something that you believe is true and contributes to the discussion (especially in a public forum like this).
Third, the statement "violence...is not an effective way to achieve ends," is just a platitude. It most definitely has been effective, and is sometimes an effective way to achieve ends. Rome seemed to take care of it's Carthage problem pretty well. You can certainly argue whether or not this is a moral way to achieve ends, but that is not what you said.
You are talking about fideism, not religion. Lots of religious folks (I am not religious) value knowledge as much as non-religious people do. Faith has nothing to do with it (see Kierkegaard)
Making such sweeping generalizations -- painting the entire concept of religion with the actions of a relatively few fundamentalists -- isn't very charitable. And it invites pointless debate, as other commenters have pointed out.
