> instead spent in memorizing and rationalizing virtually unrelated minutia about largely outdated and mostly unverified beliefs.

That’s not what my religious studies degree was about. It wasn’t expensive Sunday school. They didn’t teach apologetics. They taught scholarship, empiricism and critical inquiry. Philosophy and theology were taught from a historical/critical/contextual perspective, not a devotional/didactic one.

I remember one asking a RELS professor about his internal religious beliefs once (in private) and got a stern talking to about how deeply inappropriate that was.

I appreciate and agree with your comment generally, but your characterization of my degree is not factual.