To a sister who admires Muslim families and societies: This is because previous religions were oriented towards personal development(tazkiya) or at most tribal supremacy(asabiyyah) while Islam also includes social engineering through focus on congregation(jamat).
Peter Bell This is a fine thing wherever it is consistently true in practice. Of course, tazkiya and jamat go together and reinforce each other — overemphasis on either one produces a society (and individuals) in imbalance and disorder. But your description here is accurate in that it is quite possible for a religious group to focus on the individual development and fall short of the logical progression of the tazkiya into jamat. Fully functioning jamat will not happen unless the individuals are spiritually strong and healthy.
Now with the trend shifting scientific advancement and skepticism taking precedence over going to church, mosque, synagogue in 1st world countries, people get angry or derisive (emotions fueled by fear*) because many religious beliefs seem as far fetched as most fairy tales. Perhaps it angers people because they believe it to be an act of ignorance to believe in such fairy tales.
I’m still developing an opinion regarding why people would reject religion for the wrong reasons.
Maybe anger is a separate emotion from fear in some cases. but that’s a question for another thread.