Made a genuine attempt - but ultimately missed the point

I want to say that this film felt like it made a genuine attempt at understanding a lot of the thoughts and ways of progressives and non-religious. It's not perfect, there were some straw men and cliches, but some characters, for example Lauryn, don't feel like they were written entirely by an outsider. In fact, I even felt a bit of envy that my alma mater wasn't as awesome as the one in the film.

At the end of the day, though, the film's thesis was that religion is intrinsically connected with good works and good feelings, and that nobody would leave a religion if they weren't emotionally damaged. The two options open to the main characters, and everyone, were (a) Christianity, or (b) pained rejection. Ignored were dozens of religions, some with hundreds of sects, each with their own factual claims, each of which can be examined separately and accepted or rejected on the basis of its claims. Ignored were past and present intentions and interpretations of those religions' historical books, which parts were emphasized at the time of writing vs today, which parts were taken literally in the past vs today, and what were the underlying assumptions of the authors of those religions' holy books at the time of writing. If the character had taken any courses in Levant archaeology, human evolution, or Mesopotamian history and prehistory, the questions he would be asking and the answers that he would have been considering would have been entirely different from those posited in the film.

So while this film felt like it was genuinely reaching out culturally, less patronizingly than films like God's Not Dead, it ultimately missed it's mark.