Seems to me that humans at some point are going to have to seriously ask and seriously answer, then seriously act on the question "do we as a species want to work towards enlightenment or simply make do with Organised religion?"

History seems to fairly clearly demonstrate that the institution of Organised religion has fairly consistently made life a mess both for those within and particularly those on the outside of the particular organised religion.

For my part, if we as a species decided to do away with all forms of organised religion, that would be our first intelligent step towards a spiritual existence.

I think of religion as a personal thing. My religion is not something that someone else tells me is correct. Further, my religion is not interested in telling you (any of you) how you have to live your lives. I find Organised religion to be a very effective tool used by minorities to exercise power and control over majorities and, in short, a mechanism to grow material wealth with.

Not too much of worth there in my world view.

It also seems to be a tool that those with the greatest wealth have utilised very effectively to maintain the status quo (in a general sense) for those who have the least. As is typical when the idea of suffering is raised in a religious context. The promise of some wonderful afterlife whereby everything is provided is some kind of carrot dangled in front of those who are not having a very wonderful current life in order to keep them in order as it were.

I also think that there is probably a better word to have used than "enlightenment" so my apologies for my limited vocabulary on that one.