Is Allegorical Religion better than Fundamentalism?

[Angrboda]

Perhaps an analogy might be in order.  If a 300-ton statue appeared on the summit of Mt. Everest, we might with some justification conclude that aliens or a god was responsible.  On the other hand, if that same statue were found on a modest hill in the New York countryside, we're not going to say, "Aha! Aliens!"  If the path up from the bottom can reach the goal, the path down from the top is eliminated by Occam's razor.  The path from the bottom up, ceteris paribus, is far more probable.  We don't consider relationships to the mundane to be "religious."

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I haven't fully digested your prior post, but I will say that I am inclined to define the soul as that part of human nature which is not understood (the poorly illuminated corners of being human, like consciousness, meaning, monsters, and so on).  That being said, these things remain fertile ground because we have no bottom-up explanation for them.  You're basically confirming my point that religion is about the extra-mundane.  Extra-mundane doesn't mean unfamiliar.  We are all familiar with plenty of phenomenon that defies mundane explanation.  Put it into a different perspective.  Suppose in the 26th century we will have mapped out the brain and what is actually happening when a Zen monk experiences satori and it's readily demonstrated that there is nothing mystical about it.  Will it still be religious?  Or take ayahuasca.  If we learn that there are mundane reasons why people feel that everything is one under its influence, will the experience still be considered mystical, except by ignorant people?