The theocrats are never going to go away. They will continue to find Trumpty Dumpties from among themselves. The best that can be hoped for is to contain and control them.

@anglophone I think we best do that by addressing their supposed "authority" directly rather than smaller "issues" along the way. Trying to address a box within another box merely results in failure.

@rainmanjr How do we overcome the defects of cognition that allow religion to flourish in the first place?

@anglophone Well, for one thing, stop trying to use logic of religion. Religion has nothing to do with logic so that’s always been a misguided alley. People don’t change emotional bonds unless something offers them a better feeling and humans don’t have very long to do this. That’s why I’d try to build up a competition spirituality for everyone else and point out the benefits of fast unity. I see two possibilities that would work out well for Democrats, I believe. One is Zen Taoism. You can attach my Neural Network parasite or not but Zen provides for unity of mission (if I may), individuality, flexibility, enthusiastic participation, and many other fine benefits without being dogmatic or punitive. My NN theory adds a biologic, therefore science based, aspect which I think is what’s missing from spirituality. That’s why the population isn’t drifting away to something else. It doesn’t exist. We should create it or society will remain aimless and without purpose.
The second way is less digestible for Atheists but it would be to heavily fund a response to Tea/gQp Party which promotes Jesus’ teachings on The Mount. The snake oil salesman were successful at promoting the OT God over Jesus so that’s the moral code the religious societies have adopted. If any passion for that code has wained from all the associated enthusiasms of God Morality, then that population might be susceptible to migration away from it. Only Jesus can accomplish that migration so let’s be much more publicly vocal about what Jesus had to say. We would win any arguments so long as we stuck to The Sermon On The Mount and actual lifestyle. A Jefferson Bible sort of movement.
There is no third way other than surviving the war. Frankly, with what’s coming from the environment, I have no desire to survive it and won’t (I’m sure). So I don’t greatly care about the minor details.