They cannot be wished away. They are no longer matters of past-time hobby like any sport or social club. Rather, they now as ever before determine our lives and social relationships. These relationships are always very fragile, thus leading to religious wars within nation states or even across national boundaries. Secondly, the inbuilt mechanism in each religion to always take itself as containing the absolute truth is problematic, if not potentially explosive.
Truth is a very elusive concept.
Just when you think you have it, bouts of doubt hit you like a sledge hammer. In short, every thinking human being always searching for the truth. Only those who are dead can be excused from this search. But then some who are living content themselves with whatever pieces of truth they may be holding onto and then make the mistake of universalizing these pieces. In other words, it is either the world is defined through the these pieces or there is no definition that may be attempted elsewhere and otherwise.