Getting rid of religion is a bit like getting rid of the economy or government. Yes, the whole business of ritual (and most other cultural stuff religion claims) can be changed, eliminating religion as we know it today, but simply declaring one day that “religion doesn’t exist” will lead to other problems, which may actually be WORSE than some people holding a usually non-harmful belief, or belief-in-belief. Cults, of personality and otherwise, come up as a terrifying option...
Changing religion is a Long Game.
A far more constructive use of one’s time, to increase rationality in the population, is to encourage rational thinking among the majority of mankind (who are religious, anyway, so you give them the option of thinking about religion better, thus playing the Long Game).
Atheists have to concede that religions is widespread because people are in some sense wired up for it. Getting rid of religion, therefore, does not get rid of religious thinking, feeling and behaviour. This can be seen in the prevalence of
quaisi-religious rituals, such as going to concerts to worship “rock gods”, regarding charismatic politicians as “saviours of the nation”, and various other phenomena hiding in plain sight.
A further step, and one that is rarely taken, is realising that atheists and ratiinalists aren’t immune. People who identify as atheists don’t want to concede that they might still have some baggage of religious behaviour because that means
they no longer firmly in the Tribe of Good People..but that is itself a religious pattern.
Getting rid of religion is a bit like getting rid of the economy or government. Yes, the whole business of ritual (and most other cultural stuff religion claims) can be changed, eliminating religion as we know it today, but simply declaring one day that “religion doesn’t exist” will lead to other problems, which may actually be WORSE than some people holding a usually non-harmful belief, or belief-in-belief. Cults, of personality and otherwise, come up as a terrifying option...
Changing religion is a Long Game.
A far more constructive use of one’s time, to increase rationality in the population, is to encourage rational thinking among the majority of mankind (who are religious, anyway, so you give them the option of thinking about religion better, thus playing the Long Game).
Uncomfortable truth warning:
Atheists have to concede that religions is widespread because people are in some sense wired up for it. Getting rid of religion, therefore, does not get rid of religious thinking, feeling and behaviour. This can be seen in the prevalence of quaisi-religious rituals, such as going to concerts to worship “rock gods”, regarding charismatic politicians as “saviours of the nation”, and various other phenomena hiding in plain sight.
A further step, and one that is rarely taken, is realising that atheists and ratiinalists aren’t immune. People who identify as atheists don’t want to concede that they might still have some baggage of religious behaviour because that means they no longer firmly in the Tribe of Good People..but that is itself a religious pattern.
Exactly. As I said, the best we can hope for is to slowly eliminate religion as we know it today. Not to eliminate religion, period.