I thought this was odd too, since I always thought caffeine and coffee go hand in hand for religious reasons. But it seems that, as with many religions, these things are open to interpretation.

Take Mormons, for example. The official stance of Mormons is that they aren't allowed to drink "hot drinks". This has been interpreted as coffee/tea since those were allegedly the only hot drinks available when that text was written. So, some Mormons follow it strictly as written and avoid hot coffee and hot tea, however others take it a step further and avoid caffeine altogether.

Seriously, Mark Erickson covered this years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LY8Wi7XRXCA

Mark Erickson is awesome.

Personally, I feel that A) the author inserting his own opinions about any geographical area and B) Wired supporting such views, is unprofessional and poor journalism.

If you live in Texas, love Texas or disagree with the way that opinion was presented in general, write a letter to rants@wired.com, editor@wired.com and maybe patrick@dijusto.com (the author), politely expressing your disappointment with the poorly expressed opinion. Comments like that should be kept to a blog and don't belong on a national tech oriented publication.