Hi trevor, forgive for the super late response. Anyway, I must admit, though I'm raised as a Catholic, I do not practise, or at some points, even believe, my religion. I find that the notions Kiarostami is trying to present and argue in most of his films is that spirituality is something universal. I don't know if that demands a belief on a Higher Being, but I guess the feeling is something different from the 'physical' world, which I assume you feel sometimes. The questioning of the self, the Absolute, and all those things. I do not believe in what most priests here claiming that 'faith is beyond reason'. By the time you choose a belief, that requires certain logic, so their statements are contradictory. That is, what religion really is, doomed to be arguing its own doctrines. Religion exists through oppositions. Like Pauline Kael is not Pauline Kael if she doesn't contradict her ideas. Likewise, I also disagree with the thought of extreme martyrdom or sacrifice of one's self, but these are the things, I guess, I will realize as I continue to live, that is if I don't die early. I just feel overwhelmed of Kiarostami's films because they tend to suggest these things without preaching and not being didactic. That is, I may not do what he suggests. It's really up to me. And I think that's what the concept of religion should respect, we are thinking.

Oh well, forgive me, am I able to answer your question? I might discussed something out of context.