Philosophy writer Alain de Botton, an atheist, acknowledges what religions do well and tells his audience how to mine religions for what they do best.
This is what religions know, according to Botton:
We are forgetful: religions are circular systems where they constantly repeat and rehearse.
They try to arrange our time for us: every day is associated with a concept; important ideas must be parceled out over time. Spontaneity is way overrated.
Religions are fascinated not just with what is said, but how it is said: we are creatures of the senses, not just the mind.
Religions involve the whole body: they are ritualistic.
Religions appreciate the utility of art: religions approach art as a form of propaganda, which is supposed to point you toward what is good and away from what is bad. Art gives us visceral reminders of the messages from religion.
Religions are good at drawing communities together; religions bring together people who have nothing in common.
Along these same lines, one of the more insightful comments I have read, during a discussion about Islamophobia where people constantly confuse fundamentalist sects with Islam itself, was a statement along these lines, which I am paraphrasing here because I believe it applies to all three Semitic religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism): The only way to actually know how religious communities with a text (the Bible, the Koran, the Torah) actually live out their religion, struggle with it and understand it is by actually getting to know members of that religious community. Religions are not abstractions and texts are embedded in communities.
In other words, the interpretation of religious texts, such as the Bible, the Koran and the Torah, cannot be done apart from the traditions of the religious community the text arose out of. As the commentator said, we cannot just read these texts and take them at face value. Even within our religious communities, we struggle with the texts' meaning and we struggle with what it means to live out the revelation that we find within the text and within the traditions of our faith.
Religion is an experiential matter. It is something that is struggled with, lived and experienced -- especially by members of faith communities.
Interpretation of the text is constantly being done in the process of living the text. This is where religious fundamentalists and literalists of all types get confused. A sacred text is not like a scientific textbook. It is not written, nor is it to be interpreted, in cold, objective scientific or technical language, quite apart from the day-to-day experiences of the faithful.
This is also why outsiders, such as Islamophobes, with regard to Islam, confuse the Koran's call for spiritual struggle with a call to violently impose the Islamic faith on non-believers. They are reading the text as an outsider, without the same frame-of-reference or historical background as a person in an Islamic community reads the text.
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