Since religion necessitates the indoctrination of children and suppression of rational thought, I consider it evil. Religion should only be thought in history books. All of it. The good and bad. And if individuals of a ripe age still come to decide they want to be religious, let them. However, these will be few, for it is no match against history and philosophy.

I am begging you to first learn historical materialism about the development of religions across the globe, what roles other than “indoctrination” they have played socially, and how capitalism co-opted religion and has hollowed it out as it does with everything. A lot of your critique is about the powerful utilizing societal tools in the language of religion to exploit followers. Second, please for the love of any god you choose read some actual scholars of religion or philosophy of religion. it isn’t enough to build strawmen with Hitchens and Harris and South Park. if your thesis is to consider antireligion as a viable alternative to religion, you need to engage with actual scholars, actual lived experiences of the religions and irreligious in the midst of capitalism, and the historical repercussions of labour history in and around religious movements.

Joking aside, I feel strongly that a Copernican revolution in education is the most promising contestant that could fill the largest part of the hole religion left behind… Imagine an opposite environment where not individual test scores but mastery and cooperation is central. How nourishing that would be, especially to those with with stifling parents. I’m almost religiously convinced that after having gone through such an education system the students would way more easily and organically learn and remember all the knowledge they’re now being force-fed. Moreover, because many parents haven’t the foundation to engage in proper parenting, which puts many children on a virtue-ridden path, it would provide a home for those who don’t have one. A safe haven to look forward to, something to live for. My goodness, the amount of human potential that still has to be unlocked is immense.

education is never objective, it is never apolitical, and systematic education does not unlock human potential under capitalism, it signals social credentials to the bourgeois that you can move in that world and are most likely going to uphold those mores.

you’ve got a good start with putting your figure on a problem, that religion has been a tool used to exploit peoples for centuries and keep them in the lower classes through education, control over bodies, etc. keep going, just interact with more marxism and scholars in the field to dig further.