The task is to separate the wheat from the chaff, meaning it could be, everyone is G_d speaking, and not in metaphor, but really, truly. Our job is to take those with words of hate, divisiveness, and mean and cruel words, and acts, and not embrace those things. We need to do what Ruth did, what the ancients did in the fields that were allocated to them, and to weed out the POV, Poverty of Ideas, that Point of View, from what is golden, the wheat, what rises within us all, that One Song, that is about LOVE, the compass in compassion itself.

I totally agree that so much in religious communities of all kinds is about working to change the world in positive ways, about gifting each other. And I also see, that atheists do keep us honest in that terrible things have been done in the name of religion.

I do deeply believe it’s ALL G_D. To see this perhaps takes profound journey, of SOUL.

I appreciate the definition of religion offered here. I think it’s pretty much on target. I would add the experience of human beings and the traditions which have calcified around the three elements you mention are important functional aspects as well. The prophetic tends to arise from the experiential and frequently challenges the calcified traditional aspects.

BTW, I appreciated the hint of critical approach to religion in the original video even if it ended up reverting to automaton evangelicalism before it got finished.