You quoted Burke extensively. In which passage does he defend tradition simply on the basis of duration? As a conservative, I do reason humbly and inductively about traditions. I figure that natural selection would have rid us of them if they didn't serve us. But as an historian, I believe that everything may obsolesce, so I am open to arguments that something has changed in a way that makes any given tradition obsolete. I'm not there yet with Christianity.

I know the damage religion has done and is doing. But It remains to be seen if a society without religion can endure. Just because I think Immanuel Kant handed the Ten Commandments to John Nash doesn't mean that enough other people do. Marx was right about religion and "the masses." I suspect that we who are not the masses don't understand their pain or the value of their opiates. As is typical of Marx, he was right about the diagnosis and wrong about the prescription. His attack on religion seeks to cure the disease by photoshopping the x-ray. Likewise, I agree with atheists on theology, but not on the treatment for religiosity.