Alan thanks for your thoughtful response also.

What if religions collectively were a form of vaguely interpretable guidance that was left for us, an infant species, by a higher order intelligence, that we still do not understand, because it knew we were going to need it.

We, as a species are maybe reaching a point of maturity where we are getting close to understanding, but not quite there yet.

On the other hand, we seem to be in ever increasing grave danger. We are killing our planet and all living things on it, including ourselves, with the by-products of what can only be described as aggressive, self-indulgent, murderous, destructive greed.

In recent years, we have replaced “Thou shalt not kill”, with “Thou shalt make profit”. Our societies have become self-perpetuating profit driven things that we all have to play a reluctant part in, in order to avoid being trampled. The answers to every problem have to involve making more profit, otherwise they are trampled accordingly.

This would be pretty much exactly what most religions warn us against, and the consequences seem to be pretty much as described.

Personally, I think we could be doing much better if we had, or somehow could still, make a little more sense of religion.

Sorry if that looks like it turned into a rant, but I am not sure how else to say it.