There is one stream of Aquarian Age investigation that has to do with a complete rejection of anything that remotely reeks of -- not just religious -- but spiritual as well. It's intellectual-based thinking, taken to one particular conceptualization-extreme... like a pendulum that has swung all the way over, away from the other extreme of emotion-based religious belief. It's science essentially; the yang to religion's yin. Breaking down the physical-material into sub-atomic patterns, in the exact same way the other belief-extreme looks heavenward to create its hierarchical blueprint. And many bow to science as the new guru just like people kiss the ring on the church father's hand.
I'm a middle path person. I look beyond the illusion that is both emotion-based belief and intellect-based knowledge. Both serve a purpose, and they're not bad or inappropriate certainly. But following one or the other exclusively is illusion, and is not the path to wisdom. As with all things in life, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. And in the middle is the reality of Spirit. Spirit is the source of every truth the human being investigates. Everything emanates from that Spirit center; are merely manifestations and reflections of eternal Spirit truth. Emotional belief and intellectual knowing are truth-shadows so to speak. Half-truths at best.
Someone in another thread has been discussing chemical reaction as it relates to how life began. An innocuous observation. But then he added, "And next comes the question of how the human being then arose from all this." I replied and pointed out he was essentially identifying that nails are pounded into wood by the hammer (an innocuous observation). But that he was forgetting someone or something had to swing the hammer first, in order to pound those nails. He didn't understand what I was getting at.
Hammers and nails do not suddenly appear out of thin air and start interacting with each other. Examine the reality of hammers and nails, sure. But not as the cause of life. Rather, as the effect and result of whatever the Spirit impulse was that willed them into physical-material being.