> except, you know, the person you're conversing with this very moment, so that's a really bad (local) first approximation!

Well there's that saying about all models are wrong, and some are just more useful than others.

My country is thankfully becoming more secular as demographics change, so hopefully that first approximation improves over time.

because forgetting things about the only tool we have for communication, imperfect though it is, is always an improvement. How else will we rediscover them badly?