I'm not sure what is meant by "fervor" in the "religious fervor," (although I'm sure the official decision tried to define it). Personally I think any "belief" is a form of mental derangement -- we should stick to having opinions and not commit ourselves emotionally to them.
(Anyone who practices introspection much, and does it with a good teacher, learns how to identify beliefs and distinguish them from opinions. Basically a belief is something we assume and don't question, or if we do question it, we suffer guilt or fear or other negative emotions -- religions sometimes use this to prevent people from questioning their dogmas. We assume that what goes up must come down, even though we intellectually know better, the belief is just part of the furniture that we sit on without noticing.)
Take belief in the Bible -- how many people believe in it and could never bring themselves to see it as just a possible attitude and one probably wrong? Instead, they refuse to allow doubt to enter their head, and won't read stuff that might raise such doubts. To me this sort of thing (whether religion or politics or whatever) is a mental illness.
My mom use to tell me stories about how precocious I was when I was an infant and toddler -- things I have since learned from others were all in my mom's head. I believed them for a long time, and finding out I was not so special caused me considerable hurt, although of course in the end I am better off. That just shows children believe (don't have opinions about but believe) what their folks tell them -- reason for adults to be very careful about what they indoctrinate their children with -- to my mind a form of child abuse.
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