[bunderbunder]

That first paragraph is emblematic of the thing that most worries me about using religious groups as the core of one's social life. It may come from a well-intentioned place, but people are way too quick to resort to outright denigrating other people's beliefs in a way that, at best, infantilizes them with descriptions like "fairy tale" and "caricature". (There's not a whole lot of semantic distinction between these two characterizations.) Because of the ways that group behavior and peer pressure work, that will only get magnified if most your social life revolves around people who share identical beliefs.

There need to be more social institutions that encourage different people from different backgrounds to come together and learn to be more respectful of one another. How about a renaissance for bowling leagues?

[goldfeld]

How about a renaissance for art?