Totally. This is so close to my wording that I think I may have influenced you or you influenced me or it’s just obvious when you sit back to think about it.

Because of this lack of deity-to-individual communication religion relies heavily on religious texts…

Careful here, because what you’re really talking about is the Judeo-Christian religious ‘family’ (and some Asian traditions to a much more limited extent), which are only a few examples of many very different expressions of what we call ‘religion’.

Religions often reflect the values and expectations of the time in which their respective religious texts were conceived in, but not always…

I think religions take off best when they are substantially grounded in the existing culture but bring an element of something just new and disruptive enough to catch people’s imagination.

I am not suggesting anyone should have to give up their religion. Quite the contrary, I wholeheartedly believe everyone should be able to believe and practice what they feel is ultimately true for them…

I’m still not so sure that I agree with you on this. I’m undecided about whether religion and mutual respect for different beliefs can really coexist even in theory. On the individual level sure, although even there it’s imperfect, but on the broader social level I have serious doubts.

…at its core the general lore of religion doesn’t change…

Not so sure I agree with you there either. Of course religions get rusty and they certainly tend to creak along about 50 years behind contemporary culture, but on the whole what makes a religion last through time is the fact that it’s flexible enough to adapt to changing social circumstances. It’s usually based on pretty fundamental principles of human experience, and is also usually ambiguous enough to never be totally outrageous at least to a fair proportion of people. I read a book that was certain that according to Biblical principles, playing cards and dancing were sins. Now, pretty much all Christians would find that idea quaint, because Biblical principles can also comfortably condone playing cards and dancing. Some things are a bit harder to reconcile, like models of ‘family’ that don’t find expression in the Bible. Other things are sort of in the middle – go to any mainstream church in Australia these days and you’ll find the congregation split about 50/50 on people who believe that you can’t be a Christian and believe in evolution, and people who easily accept evolution and have no problems ‘reconciling’ that with their religion.

WordPress won’t let me log in on your site for some reason, although I can log in anywhere else.