Good points. Agree with the proposal that most H are not equipped. Anecdotally speaking I’ve seen the same – a certain H fragility – a newly half-educate H who might ’ve picked up a tome or 2 of Dick Dawkins & suddenly see himself as possessing a deep insight which obviates the the need for religion. Regurgitating Dick or someone like that he would bellow on to those who might listen or not how meaningless & useless religion is. I’ve seen similar transformations with H who encounter Marx & his cohorts, Ambedkar, the canon of nayonmAda or even a physics or a biology textbook. Then those newbies would lecture about how “irrational” religion is – a polycephalous or therocephalous god is deemed an impossibility of a specimen for teratological(←abnormalities of physiological development) investigation. The size of ghaTotkacha is given an analysis in terms of speed of neuronal conductance, etc. This indeed can lead to a denudation of religion & consequent exposure to self-wrought or enemy-engineered social devolution.
We do seem to see some of that in the H masses. On the other hand H are also prone to various rationalizations like “all science is in the shruti”; “H knew everything 10^5 or 10^6 years ago”; This in part insulates them from decay induced by half-knowledge. Hence, I indeed tend to side with the ancients that knowledge has a dangerous side to it for most people & don’t celebrate uncalibrated “enlightenment” as a good thing. I agree with the ancients that things like theurgy are good thing even if kR^itrima to the intellectual. It is like teaching physics where you don’t introduce quantum mechanics or relativity upfront to the average student. If he doesn’t have a reasonable grasp of classical mechanics, QM is simply not going to be possible. Moreover, I think most educated scientists don’t exactly understand what QM is all about – it just works & gives results.
More than one high IQ H/“intellectual” who thinks s/he has seen past religion has asked me how they could inculcate religion with a straight face to their children. They said that they get its potential social & political importance but have seen through its falseness; so they cannot be “dishonest” to their children. My somewhat blunt response was that you are not your children & vice-versa. They could have regressed to the mean so why deny them the survival mechanism that religion confers.(5)