MugaSofer comments on Religion's Claim to be Non-Disprovable - Less Wrong
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Eliezer, it's a good point, and hopefully writings like these will get the skeptic community (much larger than the reduce existential risk community) buzzing about "bayesian reasoning" as the proper contrast to religion. But it seems to me that religion has already been slayed many, many times by public intellectuals. The cutting edge areas to address, the "hard" areas, are things like universal adult enfranchisement to select policy makers and juries as finders of fact.
We have slain religion in the minds of intellectuals. But we have not slain it in the minds of ordinary people, and for better or worse ordinary people have a lot of power in modern democratic societies. So it seems to me rather imperative to find ways to improve the rationality of ordinary folk, and one very good start would be getting rid of religion.
Who are you and why are you a cartoon villain?!
Um, seriously though, I think you're confusing cause and effect there.
Lack of rationality causes religion causes lack of rationality causes religion causes lack of rationality --
Thus, if we destroy religion irrationality will resurrect it, and if we improve rationality religion will drag it down again. Depressing.