If it makes you feel better, it seems like you're not the only one who missed the thread indent 🤷♂️
snekerpimp was responding to FlyingSquid, not baldingpudenda.
Lots of great suggestions involving story craft and the like, so I'll target the "religious hangups" bit with a couple non-fiction books:
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Sentience by Nicholas Humphrey (great to get a perspective on consciousness and sentience that isn't marred with religious doctrine)
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Determined by Robert Sapolsky (a primatologist with a knack for getting you comfortable with the notion that we don't have as free a will as religion tells us)
And just to include a bit of fiction:
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Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (about life as we know it, or maybe as we don't)
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Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros (deals with overwritten cultures. Also dragons.)
Yes, so don't be lookin' at its quack