there's no evidence that religion is linked to happiness, nor does it help prevent crime (the largest percentage of inmates in America are Baptists) in fact religion becomes a rationale for all manner of degenerative activities
Prisoners are not criminals because they are religious, they're usually religious because they're in prison, have very little hope, and on average are less intelligent.
and yes, we can take away a parent's right to force their dogma and beliefs upon children - they shouldn't have it in the first place
your argument is similar to what those in favor of the death penalty say - it's good for something but we can't prove it
My main argument is: try and take religion away from people and see what happens.
certainly some people would be angry - but it will have to be introduced incrementally and they'll have to learn to be less controlling - or else be punished
So essentially when you distill this down to historical precedent, we would either have widespread riots and civil unrest, a police state, and likely an ugly period of these two conflicting.
the alternatives are ethical debate, and real things that people can do to make themselves happier
like exercise, social engagement with values, education, science, and all manner of hobbies and interests
none of these quite have the same appeal to the destitute as a big man in the sky watching over them and making it all better. Until the human condition becomes unilaterally more hospitable, you're asking far too much of the entire populace. It's poor social policy to expect the area to the left of the mean, or at least one standard deviation left of the mean, to be enlightened.
children could still be religious on there own - are you assuming that I'm saying we should be thought police?
no, the goal is to prevent parents from forcing their religion on their children when it's known that children can be brainwashed and want to please their parents (until they grow up...)
what we can't do is to allow parents to take away the rights of children so that they will feel more powerful over their children
I'm pretty secure saying you're not a parent. I really don't think that even parents who indoctrinate their children with really bad ideas do so to "feel powerful".
I don't need to assume that you want to control children's minds to think that your ideas are totalitarian; parental education of children is a very ethically touchy issue in certain regards, but all-in-all denying their ability to teach religion to children lies on the decidedly abstract/radical side of the debate.
It's also decidedly unconstitutional in the U.S. because it favors doctrines of non-belief. This violates the establishment clause (although yes, technically there exist a number of laws that swing the opposite direction). I think religious people seeing a reactionary atheist/agnostic backlash are really unlikely to construe such an imposition as a sign that they need to re-evaluate their beliefs; antagonizing people's religion historically just makes them develop a martyr complex about it.