[krapp]

>But we can still pillage the religions of the regions without a second thought?

Asia in general is sufficiently alien to the US, both geographically and culturally, that it more or less exists as caricature in many places, and because it's not Christian and European, many don't feel the need to respect it.

There was a tv show called Xena Warrior Princess, that decided to do a story arc where Xena travels to India and fights the Hindu pantheon, because fighting ancient mythological monsters was her shtick. Apparently, the people who made the show were shocked to discover that there were still Hindus in the world, who watched television and weren't happy to find that their religion provided the show's "monsters of the week."