Right, so the theory here is that what's authentic to religion is what distinguishes it from other practices. Religion begins as a cult, based on the founder's religious, prophetic, mystical experience. There's then a spectrum of ways of dealing with that core, and some are more compatible with it than others. Poetry is a more fitting way of capturing an epiphany than a politicized theology. Once the cult turns into an organized religion, politics enters the picture, tainting the poetic myths and introducing the extraneous social hierarchies and tribal disputes, making for an incoherent, inauthentic organization.

I say towards the end of the article that psychological training might potentially eliminate religion from the world, but this would be close to eliminating artistic countercultures, too, which could make for philistinism and for a society not worth living in.

Presumably, the Scandinavian countries have civic religions and secular myths about progress and the benevolence of humanity. Thus, the Scandinavians still face the problem Yuval Harari pointed to, that of getting large numbers of diverse people to be on the same page, by attracting them to profound, galvanizing, sacred stories, known as "myths." There's a difference, then, between dismissing theism and dismissing religiosity.

The question I'd raise is whether Scandinavians hold anything irrationally to be sacred.