Actually, there is a goddess Kālī, and a demon Kali. Two different entities. The pronunciation is slightly different. The goddess is Kaalii with long vowels.
Ignorance fought, thank you!
Really digging the humility at the end there.
I imagine the religious higher-ups in any faith are generally quite well aware of the fact that a non-trivial portion of their flock stray from the party line on any number of theological points.
Complaining about the crude errors and “superstitions” of the uncultured rubes is, at least, a very common theme in Christian literature throughout history.
As we were talking about Mormonism, they unabashedly and knowingly inflate their alleged membership numbers by counting people who are “inactive” - which includes people who have declared atheist and would rather get a root canal than attend another meeting.
Trust me on this - my dad was a membership clerk for them for decades. If your name is on the rolls, you’re a mormon. And they have no incentive to remove you.
The answer is far far too many. It’s as if the Age of Reason never happened. Most of the Earth’s population are still quite happily ensconced in the Middle Ages and there’s little prospect of that changing any time soon.