Sorry, wall of text… I accept I have a nearly intractable position, however I dont need to have a docturate in theocracy to recognise the crutch it has served people to make sense of who they are and where they are and the conditions they live in and justify the unaccountable misery it has caused people.

Nobody is justify any kind of misery caused by religion because religion doesn’t cause misery. That is a personification of what is, essentially, human culture. Religion does have motivations or agendas or intentions; it is a reflection of the moral values of a civilization and its people. It is neither an ideology nor a person and treating it like it is either is the first basic mistake of anti-theism in general. It demonstrates a very shallow, surface-level understanding of what religion is. You can write it off as superstition or whatever you want but at its core religion is just as much a part of human culture as music or dancing or language and pinning blame for atrocities committed in the name of religion on the religion itself is absolving the actors in question of their agency and the very secular motivations for their crimes that they used religion to obscure or justify.

To blame the concept of religion for the crimes of clerical hierarchies is like trying to blame the concept of government for the crimes of hierarchical states. It’s a very anarchist-coded position based more in moralistic idealism than a proper material analysis of religion and its role in society.

I also have studied some history to see the religious conflicts that have been going on in eurasia for the last 4500-3000 years. My experience biased and my gaps are africa and pre-colonial americas (as you see with my hand wave of animist and totemist). Using religion to hold power over others I find unacceptable and I do not believe that a theocracy is a desirable form of government. This is a religious class ruling over the people.

You couldn’t possibly have studied religious conflicts because no such thing even exists. Wars aren’t fought in the name of religion and never have been. You are a Marxist and as a Marxist should be viewing history through the lens of historical materialism and thus understanding that real, tangible things drive conflict. The crusades are a prime example of this in that they were driven by landless adventurers from the ruling military aristocracy of Feudal Europe who had no legitimate paths to power and so needed to conquer new territory in order to rule. Even Pope Urban II calling for the First Crusade was a political move intended to restore the authority of the Papacy over European monarchs as it was beginning to wane. The Crusades then went on for about two centuries, during which Christians & Muslims formed alliances both against each other and with each other. Entire attempts at jihads or crusades failed because neither party was interested in breaking the peace out of pure pragmatism. Richard the Lionheart and Salad ad-Din almost forged a marriage alliance to end the Third Crusade. The Christians tried to ally with the Mongols who were very much not Christians. Shia and Sunni Muslims put aside their differences not only to fight Christian Crusaders but also Turco-Mongol invaders. The Orthodox Byzantines simultaneously worked with and against the Catholic Crusaders whenever it was convenient and were even targeted by a Crusade that was originally intended for Muslim Egypt even though their call for aid from Western Christians was a major factor in the First Crusade happening.

This is just one example but it’s fairly consistent regardless of what “religious” conflict you look at. Even the conquering Aztecs had practical reasons for the large amounts of human sacrifice they performed; rule through terror to exact tribute and control territory, destroy the ruling & warrior classes of enemy states to weaken them, demonstrate power, etc. Every single fool who has claimed their atrocities were done in the name of “religion” were in fact doing it for real, physical gains it be loot, slaves, land, or even just prestige from Assyria bulldozing Babylon to the Salem Witch Trials to modern Wahhabi and Salafist movements. In both Spain and Russia the priests took the side of the reactionaries because they were landholders who feared the loss of their territory & wealth. Whether they actually believed communism or anarchism to be “godless” was secondary and largely irrelevant; their class interest came first, always.

To have no acknowledgement of the religous classes that ruled over swathes of people, and rules over people to this day, seems folly. A child born into this world has no way to seperate themselves from the religion of their parents and their community and that pains me.

The clergy are by and large a relic of a bygone age in most countries and don’t exert much if any economic or political power these days. They are definitely allied with the ruling class, and theirs is a class that is long overdue for abolition for sure as it is certainly an oppressive class. But here’s the thing: not all religions have clergy. In fact, most of them don’t have clergy! At all! And never have! A religion in fact does not require a clergy at all and the only reason the largest religions all have them is for the same reason all governments have states: to enforce their ruling class’ interest. You’re treating religion as the universal thing, as if everyone born into a religious family or community is being born into some psychotic Yankee Christian cult where the priests abuse the kids and the parents tell their children they’re going to Hell if they misbehave. Believe it or not but that experience not only isn’t universal for all religions it’s also just straight up not the norm even within Christianity. These are environments created from specific conditions: close ties to power between land-owning priests and their capitalist benefactors.

The actual issue at heart here isn’t theism but clericalism. You cannot eradicate religion any more than you can eradicate any other type of human culture like poetry or painting or movies but you can absolutely dismantle the tangible hierarchy that uses religion as a shield to obscure criminal activity on behalf of the ruling class. That is a real goal which is not only desirable but actually achievable.