One of the problems here is the many different meanings attributed to the word. Religious to a strait-laced church-goer means attending on Sunday, singing in the choir, titheing, and raising your sons to be altarboys.

Religion to a devout Muslim may not mean those things, but it does mean praying to Mecca three times a day and not eating during daylight in Ramadan. That's "being religious".

To others, religion means no convention, but constant attention to certain entities, such as those addressed in prayer; others may feel it is maintaining a mindset thatmotivates charitable works.

Still others may hold -- I certainly do -- that religion simply means keeping some attention on the spiritual side of things, being mindful that there are genuine mysteries and perhaps causative powers in the Universe beyond our normal comprehension, and appreciating the spiritual nature of any in whom it is visible. This includes some pets but not all humans, and seems to be (to me) independent of species.

I doubt anyone would argue that being aware of how much we do not yet know is mentally ill. Similarly insisting on knowing something in the absence of experience or evidence is hard to defend as a rational position; but every experience is different.

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