> Sufficiently large distances of abstraction from the concrete, underlying mechanics are indistinguishable from religion and superstitious belief.

Hell, you can apply this to all culture. Humans are not very rational or observant beings, despite how much some of us insist to the contrary. Basically any abstraction is a) going to be taken at face value, or on an assumption that the world is inherently structural, and b) the assumption is essentially guaranteed to either be inaccurate or tautological.

"Religion" was invented about 500 years ago to distinguish from the secularists, but the distance between them these days is mostly one of chosen ritual and the direction in which arrogance is spewed. After all, the church that persecuted Galileo was hardly any more irrational than the states we entrust nuclear weapons to is today.