Most people need religion for psychological and social stability.
Science replaces religion by pointing out and delegitimizing faith-based morality, leaving just legislation to guide one's life.
Further, the vast majority of people are not able to psychologically stably function without a concept of Big Brother and Heaven, thus leading either to elitism or practical moral anarchy.
Scientism tells people that only conclusions drawn from mutually agreed evidence are valid in society.
Most people are incapable of building their own morality from scientific observation.
Most people are afraid of death, mortality and unaccompanied mental and physical pain. Religion makes the fear less painful.
This is the thesis that says we can combat fundamentalism by supplying people with an easier life. The implicit underlying thesis is that religion is a drug that enables people to endure a hard life, and that fundamentalism is an addictive drug that takes over the hard life itself, and then, in conflict with non-fundamentalist societies, makes life harder through war.
I don't know the answer to this problem, and don't think the solution is removal or modification of religion, since it seems to emerge naturally from human responses to stress.
Humans don't behave rationally in the face of good scientific information. It seems that at a certain level of doom forecasting, such as the current cycle of fearmongering (supposedly to get us to behave rationally) people just freeze up, and look for surcease from the scientific method.
Hitler came to power by exploiting the economic frustration of the vast German middle class after the Versailles Treaty imposed massive reparations from the German state.
I don't know if Osama bin Laden is a hero for the same reason, although the thesis that he plays on the economic hardships imposed by corrupt Western-supported regimes resonates with my larger thesis the religion is an easier sell in hard financial times, when providers become very frustrated and psychologically unstable when they can't feed or medicate their family.
I see fundamentalism as the addition of God as helpful tribal leader in times of stress. It isn't about land, food or medicine until land and food and medicine fail. Then the failed state is replaced by sheer hope for the future, and the state either comes under attack or joins forces with religion.
In this sense, the French Revolution shows the similarity between religion and extreme anarchist views.
Religion seems necessary in this flawed world of rich and poor, status and underclass. And capitalism is not a religion that helps the problem, since it inevitably leads to hyperindividualism and greed instead of cooperation and sharing. h/t to Marx, Karl.
So, don't work on abolishing religion until you've proved it isn't a necessary element for a majority of society. I suspect that working for the United Nations, and providing a decent physical life for people will allow them to dismiss fundamentalists -- Muslim, Christian, and Hindu, and others -- as boat rockers who might upset the delicate social balance that feeds and clothes and medicates them.
That's why the Nation of Islam, the Mormons, and other socially supportive religions are growing as the rich steal more and more of the needs of the poor.
It's also why, incidentally, Scientology works. It teaches people to either ignore their psychological stress, or to interpret it calmly, rather than as a threat.
It doesn't matter if it makes sense to a cognitive scientist, although it does.
It does make the pain stop, and life feel better. You know a better reason to be religious?