Eradication or secular edification

“Religion, in all its forms — orthodox, spiritual, progressive, open, conservative, all — needs to be eradicated from society.” An opinion very common to many outspoken atheists, especially those with bad personal experiences in their past. To turn the whole world, the whole of society, into a secular state of mind, is a pretty hefty undertaking, and one with a rather controversial nature also.

A point often made as a counterattack is that spiritual and progressive religion, or better yet, “faith,” holds no real threat to mankind, at least not in the way radical and/or fundamentalistic religious currents do. You could say that, if you would blindly ignore the future prospects of those “faith” based groupings. They may not preach intolerance (yet), but they do “lend tacit support to the religious divisions in [the] world”¹ (as Sam Harris puts it), which could ultimately be used as a safe goat to separate certain groups of people, to create indifference to one another, and eventually could become the fuel behind wars.

Does this mean all of religion is evil, corrupt, iniquitous, malevolent and villainous? No, there are certain religious currents which provide support only, and which do not preach hatred or act corrupt. At least, not yet, because all could potentially become a threat to mankind. Ignoring history in this is no option. Time and time again religious ideas — even those based on (then) progressive and open religious concepts — have been used to start wars, to suppress certain members of society, to dictate what is right and wrong, and to create class hierarchies.

Do I think religion should be eradicated from society? In a way I do, because I support all the above. And I’m not proclaiming that without any knowledge of how far religion can fall of the “righteous” scale. Besides knowledge of history and sociology, I have experienced the ugly side of religion first hand. Multiple times it got very nasty, and each time it gave me more to hate.

But! In a way I don’t. Eradication from society would mean some kind of force, some sort of pressure. In my mind that is an act of lowering yourself to the level of religion, with its dictatorial rules and standards. Perhaps “eradication from society” is the wrong statement for the situation. “Implanting reason within society” and “the secular edification² of society,” would suit the cause more.