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Social conformity keeps many people in the religion they're born into. Ask anyone who has ever considered leaving the faith of their family and friends. Going against the group is not easy.
This tendency to conform to the group also often encourages people to participate in evil plans or tolerate them. For example, Pope John Paul's personal crusade against condom use in Africa resulted in the deaths of millions from AIDs (the exact numbers are disputed, but is that important?). Probably most Catholics do not agree with this idea that condoms are evil, but they say nothing. The power of social conformity comes into play. Nobody else in the faith was speaking out against the pope, so why should I?
Think for a moment what it is like for a man or woman to be in a religion, and have almost everyone else he or she knows in that same religion. To speak against the faith is very difficult. It may mean losing friends and family. It may feel wrong, like one is attacking the others in their social group by attacking their beliefs. It is difficult to contemplate being alone for speaking the truth one sees.
How do we overcome this powerful force of social conformity that ties people to their religions? here are a few suggestions.
The most obvious way to overcome the specific effects of social conformity in religion is to use this tool in reverse. In other words, get religious people to be a part of a group of non-religious people, so they'll tend to conform to the beliefs of these people. It's a simple solution, but only partly effective, and conformity itself may be damaging to the independent rational thinking we hope to encourage.
On the other hand, we can recognize the real need people have for association with others, and make this a part of the plan. A desire to leave his religion may be encouraged by letting a man know of others who have left it. This would make it easier for him to take the step, because he is reminded that he's not the only one.
An important part of some religions is isolation form "outsiders," even when members live among them. In these cases, we may accomplish some good by exposing those who are in isolated religious groups to new ideas. Often intelligent people are in a faith only by circumstance and because of limited exposure to the alternatives.
Simply having access to literature and people who have different ideas may be all some need to start the process of getting rid of their religion. They may come to identify more strongly with these other people and ideas they read about than those they see around them, and so they may overcome the fear of leaving the group.
Probably the worst thing we can do is to personally attack people of religious faith. It is one thing to attack the religion itself, and perhaps a good idea to point out the hypocrisy of its leaders. But personal verbal attacks against individual members of a religion will mostly backfire. It demonstrates a lack of compassion, but this is only part of the reason for its ineffectiveness.
When a person is attacked, even with nothing more than a comment, she feels the need to defend herself. When attacked for her beliefs, she'll also defend her faith. She will attempt to convince you, others and (most importantly) herself of the rightness of the faith. Obviously, this does not encourage an open mind which is receptive to change.
If we want to truly help religious people change their beliefs, rather than just argue with them, we have to be more welcoming and tolerant. What a shame to chase a man away if you're the only reasonable non-religious person he has ever been exposed to. Despite their religions, most people share a basic sense of morality in any case, and don't take their religious tenets seriously enough to hurt others purposely.
In other words, it is only ignorance and fear that keeps most people faithful to the nonsense of religion. They are not evil people. This important point requires some exploration.
Let's consider for a moment how our grandfathers and grandmothers were silent or approving as U.S. citizens were put in concentration camps for the crime of being Japanese. They were silent as more than 100,000 innocent people were burned alive by pouring gasoline on them in Dresden Germany (we call this terrorism now). We could go further back to a time when many of our family owned slaves.
The point? We are talking about ordinary people anticipating in or tolerating horrible crimes out of ignorance, not evil intent. Consider the incredibly racist attitudes of 1940s, and how many of these same people were still alive - and with new opinions - after the civil rights movement of the 1960s. People do change, and they often are only approving of or participating in evil because of true ignorance.
Now to get back to the matter of religion and social conformity. The religious people of the world are mostly decent people. They truly do not understand the danger and immorality of their religious ideas. They are afraid of outsiders, of non-believers, and if we push them away or attack them, we confirm their fears and contribute to their reactive reaffirming of faith, and to their conformity to their group, which to them feels comfortable and safe, after all.
An acceptance of people as they are does not imply that we approve of their beliefs. If asked, we should express our own beliefs - even those which will shock and offend a person. However, if our opinion is not asked, we should not try to shove our ideas down anyone's throat. Be who you are and let others be who they are, and in this tolerance it is possible that the heart of the religious person will be opened to see the truth.