What was the context that the original commenter was responding to?
Were they responding to studies where children and young people brought up in communities with a sense of self-identity have better outcomes? Religion could be a stand-in for community involvement.
Responding to somebody's comment in a vacuum, is disingenuous, it misses the context, and we could be missing the entire point. We don't have enough data.
And most importantly, this method of rhetoric does not convert people to your position.