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Mmm it's a big topic, and I wouldn't say I'm qualified to give serious answers here. If you're truly interested I'd recommend Jordan Peterson's lectures on the significance of Biblical stories. His book 12 Rules for Life is good as well.
From a deeper, more philosophical standpoint, David Bentley Hart's The Experience of God, and Tom Holland's Dominion are great there.
That being said, the short answer for me from a rationalist perspective is that religion works. There's a famous post back on LessWrong that asks, if rationalists are so rational, why aren't we winning? The answer, to my mind, is that obviously rationality cannot model everything in the world. Rationality a great servant, and an awful master. When it comes to the deeper/broader questions of life, especially moral and value hierarchies, you need a more complex and flexible structure.
Traditionally morality has been taught in a narrative or symbolic structure, via stories, complex images with much encoded information, and embodied ritual. Sarah Perry, one of the writers credited with starting the 'postrat' movement to some degree, wrote a great blog post on ritual here.
If you're curious about more writings that moved people out of pure rationalism and into something like 'post-rationalism' I'd recommend this blogpost from eigenrobot.
That's a lot of resources to check out, thank you!
Do you actually believe in your religion's unproven claims about metaphysical reality and the afterlife? Or are you partaking only for the sake of the rituals?
Depends. I believed when I converted, but I do struggle with doubts quite often. Just wrote a blog about it actually: https://shapesinthefog.substack.com/p/faith-and-doubt-during-holy-week
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