Ignorance in the Name of Jesus?

I often fall into conflict with my fellow atheists over evangelicalism; not religious evangelicalism, but rather the atheistic version thereof - actively converting followers of irrational religious belief's to the rational beliefs of atheism. Many of my brethren strongly believe that we should be out there, spreading the good word (so to speak). I disagree, not because I don't believe that rationality isn't worth fighting for, but rather because such activities act to propagate the very thing that religious faith depends on...

...Ignorance

The worlds various religions, in their various forms, did their best - and continue to do their best - to keep their flocks ignorant.  Indeed, a dark, scary, unintelligible word has room in it for demons, angels and god(s).  The problem, from religions perspective, is that every time humanity learns something new we push back the darkness a little bit, leaving a little less room for the supernatural, and thus leave a little less room for religion.  Not too surprisingly, most religions try very hard to keep that curtain from being pushed back.

The Christian church, in its various flavours, are a perfect example of this.  For over a millenia the Christian church operated solely in latin.  By that time Latin was a dead language, and thus the church deprived most of its members of even a basic understanding of their own faith - including the contradictions and outright evil acts of god .  The exemption on keeping faith latin was absolute - translation of the bible or providing mass in any language other than latin was strictly forbidden, oft on the pain of death.

It took over a millennia, but this eventually began to change - first mass and with bibles were translated into local language.  But even that slight lifting of the darkness - simply allowing people to know their own faith - did not come easy.  In many ways the war wasn't won until the 1450's, with Gutenberg's invention of movable type, which move duplication of the bible from the world of religious scribes to the world of the educated gentry.  Finally, nearly 1400 years after it was written, the bible became a book of the masses.

But the promotion of ignorance didn't begin, or end, with the bible.  The litany of those persecuted and murdered by the church, for simply thinking thoughts outside of 'god is good', is beyond repetition.  We will never know the toll that was extolled, other than a few cases where the very brightest of humanity was stamped out by the darkness of catholism.  Some, like Galileo and Da Vinci got off easy - they were simply threatened with torture and death if the continued to pursue certain lines of thought.  Others were not so lucky...

...One of the more unlucky, and yet amazingly percipient, victims of the church was a little-known man by the name of Giodano Bruno.  Bruno was a philosopher, scientist and mathematician.  Born just a few years after Copernicus "discovered" the true nature of planetary orbits, and decades before Galileo proved Copernicus to be correct, Bruno hit upon a simple truth that wasn't rediscovered for centuries:

Our sun is but one star among many, the family of planets circling our star are but just one family of many orbiting other stars.  He even went so far as to propose life may exist on other planets, and to contemplate on the nature of god.

His prize for discovering a few simple truths - the church nailed his tongue to his jawbone, and then burned him alive.

As time went on this kind of retribution became less and less common, as the church began taking other route to keeping their flocks ignorant.  When the church couldn't suppress translations of the bible, they tried to limit the education of the masses.  When that failed, they tried to limit education to men (something which sadly still occurs in some ways in the western world today).

Fast-forward to today and you can see this policy in action - the church cannot murder those who study the universe and the myriad ways in which it works.  They cannot murder the publishers who disseminate these materials, nor the teachers who pass the information onto their pupils.  Instead, they now target the pupils themselves - the oppose, and try to limit, the teaching of nearly every branch of science - evolution, geology, palaeontology, genetics, cosmology and so forth all provide an explanation of the universe that runs contrary to the bronze-age creation myth  to which the subscribe.  

They demonize those who would uncover and teach these truths - scientists, teachers,  even fellow members of the clergy who find science to be "cool".  And these actions are not limited to a small number of extremist churches; even the more "liberal" churches maintain lists - formal or otherwise - of books, movies, etc, that they would prefer their members not see.  They "instruct" their followers on how to incorporate science into their religious view point, and so forth.

The above seems to be quite off-topic to how I started this post, but trust me, there is some relevance.  The point of the above rant was simply this - religion feeds on, indeed subsists on, ignorance.  When ignorance is replaced with knowledge, religion looses ground.  Every step towards intellectual enlightenment is a step backwards for god(s).  

By seeking converts atheists would be playing the same game - simply asking people to exchange one belief for another.  If successful such an evangelical path would simply create a host of unbelievers who became atheists simply because someone told them to.

I cannot speak for all atheists, but I know many came to their beliefs through the same route I did - through introspection, thinking about ones beliefs, and inquiry into my religion, other religions, science, philosophy and the world in general.  Through this path - learning - I came to understand the simple truth that religion is a human construct, as are our gods.

As atheists we should be promoting this path - learning, education and introspection.  Only through that approach will we truly free the world of the parasite of religion.  To convert is simply to continue on as per usual - belief without knowledge, ignorance in exchange for intelligence.  By seeking converts we would cast down a repressive pathos of faith and replace it with a repressive pathos of atheism.  

This shouldn't be our goal, we should try to be better than the religions we oppose.  Instead of conversion we should seek education, free thought,  rationality, and equality.  Only through such a route will we be able to rout the ignorance  - both religious and secular - that permeates our society.   By replacing ignorance with knowledge and rationality we will achieve the world we want - one where rationality and fact rule, and where irrationality, fear and sciolism are regaled to the dustbin of history.

Religion, in all its forms - pantheistic, monotheistic, even atheistic - would not survive in such a society.  The religious mode of thought - beliefs out of fear, ignorance and conformity - would fall.  The impact of this would extend far beyond simple religious beliefs - politics, business, even day-to-day interactions between people would change, and all for the better.