Human beings are incredibly flawed. And that's a good thing. It means that were are perfectible, that there is work to be done. Otherwise we would be all-knowing perfect machines, and who wants that?

We are also amazingly varied. We are good at many things and bad at many others. This makes for an interesting population of beings.

The upshot is that there are no two humans who are alike in temperament, intelligence and potential. You have to take your human as you find him or her.

Take my mother. After over 5 years of debate and conversation, I've managed to knock off enough religious prejudice and down and out nastiness from her world-view that the woman she is today (a toothless version of the the C of E) is hardly recognizable to the one she once was (a rapid evangelical).

I, on the other hand, am also on a long journey to the land of reason as I attempt through various means to shed my own prejudices (whether it be nationalism; racism; or suspicion of all religious people) and cognitive biases (including over confidence) and areas of great ignorance (such as maths, physics or chemistry).

We, not just the religious, the bigoted or the ignorant, all have work to do.