Definitely small to start with - maybe more people would want to join in later? But difficult to maintain cohesion as you get too many people, kids are born and grown up etc. etc. But hey, if the Amish and other religious communities and manage it for generations and with thousands, why not the other way around?

But how to do that? Definitely more realistic thought experiment since it is one all 20+ % of us in the US (at least) can act on. So far we haven't been very successful.

Not sure where you live but in the country I live religion is a very serious and oppressive influence on society. If they lived and let live it wouldn't be a problem.

I think we could ferret those out quickly enough. Especially with Social Media available.

@misstuffy like an episode of Black Mirror for sure.

I certainly hadn't proposed any ways to implement such a society. I would rather hope that with rational adults joining it voluntarily, there would simply be no need for religion, any more than we have a need for ancestor worship, trepanation, or human sacrifice.

For sure there will be scammers - but normally laws work fine for that.

@prometheus I think trepanning is still used for certain ailments but yes, I guess , it would be ok for some, ask Russians or Chinese people I guess? (Sorry I couldn’t resist).

@girlwithsmiles well they have found skulls of people with several holes in so I guess trepanation was so successful they used it many times. Right...

@prometheus I agree most would join because they want to be there, but there are always those who want to infiltrate for their own agendas that have nothing to do with why an organization, business or community exists, but rather how they can exploit them for their own benefit.

@prometheus yes, still do, it’s just called craniotomy now and then they tend to patch the gap up afterwards

@girlwithsmiles if God didn't want us to drill holes in our scalps he would have put more pain nerves up there...

I think most of us are very familiar with living in societies that ban things. A good many things I like it would want to do are banned. And in general the path forward is to ban less things. But ultimately banning religion - is basically the ultimate meta ban. The self banning ban. Religions after all being essentially a culture of banning based on no good reason other than control.

@prometheus Just because we already live in a somewhat ban happy society, does not automatically mean that's a good thing. We despise the banners, yet are so quick to adopt their ways at the first chance.

@SpikeTalon but this is voluntary. No one would be forcing you to ensure the ban. You're free to leave at any time just like if you enter a "No shirt, no shoes, no service" establishment and suddenly get a strong urge to take your shirt off (right said Fred).

@prometheus Not exactly voluntary, you mentioned above they would be required to leave. Still think bans of that sort are creepy. In the US the majority are religious unfortunately, imagine how you'd feel if they made it compulsory for anyone who identifies as atheist/non-religious to immediately vacate the country? I'd be outraged over such.

@SpikeTalon I was not suggesting taking any existing place and forcing people to leave. It's a thought experiment.

@prometheus Okay, fair enough.

How could I improve it? Seems like you got the gist of it though.

@prometheus. You could be more specific. The paremeters of your statement are too loose. You offer an either/or scenario (false dichotomy) & then proceed to offer an explanation of how it all works.
Would society be better with or without religion? Or a combination of the two? Or various degrees?