I read your thoughtful and important article in its entirety, but if I missed something and seem to be creating a new point or contradicting a point you made, it's not deliberate.

Rituals were an important part of human life before Christianity and Judaism. (If you have pets, you may have observed that they create certain ritualistic behavior in order to deal with day-to-day challenges.) I don't think there's anything inherently irrational or parochial about ritual.

The problem, in my view, isn't that the Christian or Judaic or Buddhist or whatever belief system is outdated but that most modern belief systems don't understand or promote the inner importance of ritual. Certainly some rituals can become superseded (e.g. reciting the Mass in Latin), but as Flannery O'Connor said, "If it's just a symbol, I'd say to hell with it." Ritual divorced from the inner life of the adherent is just superstition, like not walking under a ladder or saying "God bless you" when someone sneezes.