Tbh, I think humans just have a lot of barbaric forms of symbolism or abstract practices, and religion is just one of the many excuses for it or ways to “formalize” it.

The older I get the less I think “religion” is to blame for anything, because sure we circumcise potentially due to religious reasoning, but then the “non-religious” today literally hold up as an example of justice and pride for people to ingest chemicals that cause sterility and cancer and literally cut their entire genitals off and are mutilated to make a flesh mimicry of the opposing sexual organs or anatomy that is obviously non-functioning and results in life-long, irreversible complications for more than half of all operations… and this is actively encouraged and pushed onto children when they are afraid of puberty.

It isn’t really “religion,” imo, people can just be barbarians and the narratives for why we do it change over time. 🤷🏻‍♂️