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ciphergoth comments on Tolerate Tolerance - Less Wrong
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I think you point up the problem with your own suggestion - we have to have examples of rationality failure to discuss, and if we choose an example on which we agree less (eg something to do with AGW) then we will end up discussing the example instead of what it is intended to illustrate. We keep coming back to religion not just because practically every failure of rationality there is has a religious example, but because it's something we agree on.
It should be noted that if all goes according to plan, we won't have religion as a relevant example for too much longer. One day (I hope) we will need to teach rationality without being able to gesture out the window at a group of intelligent adults who think crackers turn into human flesh on the way down their gullets.
Why not plan ahead?
ETA: Now I think of it, crackers do, of course, turn into human flesh, it just happens a bit later.
It's not so much that I'm trying to hide my atheism, or that I worry about offending theists - then I wouldn't speak frankly online. The smart ones are going to notice, if you talk about fake explanations, that this applies to God; and they're going to know that you know it, and that you're an atheist. Admittedly, they may be much less personally offended if you never spell out the application - not sure why, but that probably is how it works.
And I don't plan far enough ahead for a day when religion is dead, because most of my utility-leverage comes before then.
But rationality is itself, not atheism or a-anything; and therefore, for aesthetic reasons, when I canonicalize (compile books or similar long works), I plan to try much harder to present what rationality is, and not let it be a reaction to or a refutation of anything.
Writing that way takes more effort, though.
they may be much less personally offended if you never spell out the application - not sure why, but that probably is how it works.
Once you connect the dots and make the application explicit, they feel honor-bound to take offense and to defend their theism, regardless of whether they personally want to take offense or not. In their mind, making the application explicit shifts the discussion from being about ideas to being about their core beliefs and thus about their person.
For me, this appears to be correct.
If all goes according to plan, by then we will be able to bring up more controversial examples without debate descending into nonsense. Let's cross that bridge when we come to it.
I think there are other examples with just as much agreement on their wrongness, many of which have a much lower degree of investment even for their believers. Astrology for instance has many believers, but they tend to be fairly weak beliefs, and don't produce such a defensive reaction when criticized. Lots of other superstitions also exist, so sadly I don't think we'll run out of examples any time soon.
But because people aren't so invested in it, they mostly won't work so hard to rationalise it; mostly people who are really trying to be rational will simply drop it, and you're left with a fairly flabby opposition. Whereas lots of smart people who really wanted to be clear-thinking have fought to hang onto religion, and built huge castles of error to defend it.