so, i mean...

it makes some good amount of sense to worship the sun, in an abstract manner, even as you realize that you're better off trying to understand it using science than influence it using chants. the sun created us, and will ultimately destroy us. it is the source of all life on the planet. if there's something in our experience that is like a god, it is not an ethereal force or something we've projected as a reflection of our own existence, but the star right in front of us.

the ancients were primitive, but not irrational.

rather, it is the child-like anti-intellectualism that we've inherited from dark age religions like christianity and islam that doesn't make any sense.