IMO, Patra is a negative example of a religious follower: someone who adopts a religion not by way of a personal spiritual journey and genuine conviction, but for social reasons,such as to please someone (in her case, Leo), looking outside oneself to find the answers, to be led and told what to do. Even though it seems she is uncomfortable with being a Christian Scientist, she blindly follows Leo and his faith.
I left the church I was raised in (mainstream Christian) as a teenager, attended a UU youth group with friends, and as a young adult, didn't really follow any religion; I thought of myself as an agnostic, respectful of all faiths but not really understanding what it was all about. I certainly did not see God as a person-like being, a "guy in the sky," but I didn't have any other way of thinking about that concept. At the same time, I always felt there might be more to life than the material. (I had a strange experience of that in my teens.) Parenthood in my 30s led me to take up my spiritual journey, and after several decades of being active in Unitarian Universalism, in my 60s I have also come to think of myself as a progressive Christian as well as a UU-- a return to the faith I grew up in, but on a different level, taking scripture seriously but not literally (and for me, serious literature can be scripture too, especially poetry, and scriptures of other faiths...) I am content to say God is a mystery, a word we use to point to all that is good and beautiful and healing, a creative energy at work that we can experience through our loving relationships, through art and music, through the pursuit of science, and in the "church" of nature. Jesus (and all great religious leaders) was human, and divinely inspired; he is a great moral example, but not the only one. I think it is up to each person to decide for him or herself and if following a faith, interpret it for him or herself. Tradition is only alive and worthwhile if you can find meaning in it for yourself.
A church is a way for people of faith to support one another and to act together out of shared values to do good in the world, such as helping the poor and advocating for justice. For me, that is the only point of "organized" religion... I would never say people without an organized religion can't be deeply spiritual and/or moral people. And many people who claim to be religious are, to my mind, not religious at all.. and Patra and Leo are good examples of that, not just because of their son's death, but also because of how they treated Linda.