Popes, Shamans, Albanian nuns and archbishops of Canterbury can all be fonts of wisdom. Only a fool would dismiss everything they said or did as idiotic or evil. Even Mussolini got the trains right. But you don't need to expect wisdom to be expressed only in your own terms to see that they can also all be fonts of damaging nonsense. What you need is those skills that religious instruction seeks to deny you: the ability to be critical and discriminating. To demand evidence and to sceptical. To sort the wheat from the chaff. The freedom to think for yourself, not to accept the things you're being told that are based merely on tradition, hearsay, edicts from holy men, witness, miracles or selected ancient texts of dubious authorship.