Thank you for your thoughts, Allan. I won’t begrudge anyone their religion; for all the (vast) horrors people have committed in the name of religion, faith can be a motivator of good in countless many other individuals… and even within some of the same. But I do find it lamentable that so many practitioners of organized Abrahamic religions see critical thinking, directed toward the religion, as a bad thing. (Though, to the best of my understanding, many branches of Judaism have encouraged questioning and critical reading of scripture for hundreds of years.) That said, spirituality is an important part of my life, but I lean New Age; I appreciate the fact that New Age philosophies leave so much room for — and generally encourage! — thinking for oneself. However, we are still stuck with overarching social institutions that prefer unquestioning groupthink, and that’s a bit of a problem. I, too, wish that more people updated their belief systems. There are indeed plenty of social ills that are rooted in backwards religious beliefs and the bastardization of scripture, and I’m honestly not sure what the solution is.