[wwweston]

> I find that thoughtful engagement with religion (Judaism in my case)

I've heard Judaism characterized as very accepting of discourse and reinterpretation of itself. Does this strike you as accurate? If so, it sounds like a kind of mental liquidity...

> When you accept on faith a handful of principles that deal with an unknowable domain

Sounds like mathematics, in which practitioners become used to both the process of relying on a set of axioms and selecting them for the purposes of exploring or constraining systems, which makes one aware that there's a certain degree of choice or even potentially arbitrariness to it...

[xyzelement]

I agree with you on both counts.

For example, the study of the Talmud is an example of both mental training in debating an issue from several perspectives, and the installment of the idea that this is part of the religion.

You can also look up "Jewish responsa" on Wikipedia as a diving point into this.