It has recently been made very clear to me that a profound understanding of the depth of religion can not be found unless an individual is proficient in the basic scientific facts and theories.
Can you imagine explaining how the quran goes against the theory of spontaneous creation to someone who doesn't understand the concept of life? The requirements for perfect DNA to successfully emerge from a vast pool of dispersed nucleic acids, however conducive the environment is?
This has led me to believe that the path to religious understanding lies in knowledge. All knowledge, not just knowledge of religion and it's history, not just what a holy book says about a particular religion.
Blind faith in religion has been the norm among people, and the quest for knowledge is not even considered by many.
Islam seems to be more a learning process than a religion; and this is probably also why the true concept of this religion is only understood fully by a sad handful of people.
This is probably why a religion based on mythological beings leading (albeit glorious, but relatively) human-ish lives seems like a more palatable concept. God-like beings, living relatable experiences are a more down-to-earth way of teaching lessons through through age old tradition of morals at the end of a story.
Though I have to ask myself, if a god-like being has to subject themself to mundane acts like going for training and getting educated in the process of attainment of knowledge, what does that excuse us, mere mortals from striving doubly so for the same?
Isn't this a perfect example of taking what we like and twisting it into convenient truths that make life more easy?
Isn't this fundamentally what all religions have been reduced to - a shadow of their former selves, forgotten about why they came into being, about their true purpose; but now exist to provide some sort of semblance of routine and blind trust in a supreme power / powers beyond our comprehension to ease our misgivings?