Even considered on a spiritual level, the case can certainly made that modern secular religions are still religions. Maybe it's a bit of a stretch, since there is no explicit assertion of the supernatural, but the dynamics remain the same. However, we tend to be talking on a social level, at which the two types of belief systems become indistinguishable. Virtue signaling, demands of piety, burning heretics, exercising demons...it's all there. We don't even comment on those traits too much, because they're common through all human cultures. What we comment on is the delusion. Liberals believe they are the vanguard against superstitious religions, rather than just another on the list. At this distance we have great clarity that the Communist Russia and China persecutions of organized religions were merely aimed at reducing their ideological competitors. For modern liberals, the dynamic is the same.
Considered economically, the secular religions remain indistinguishable from the others. A cynical take would be that the church redirects wealth from the congregation to itself, which is correct but misses too much. The church takes money from the congregation, but distributes much of it back into the community, aiding the needy and destitute. The economic model of the church is that of the charity, which creates a wealth flow from richer to poorer, and situates itself as a middleman. Whether the church operates as a good charity or a bad one is a a variable and subject to its own debate, but in either case it must maintain the perception that it is engaging in good works to keep its economic niche safe. The most corrupt charities aren't the ones who distribute the least. Those that distribute no funds lose the faith of their donors. The biggest scammers know that they must keep some funds flowing downstream to keep the gears turning.
It is easy to make a positive case for charities, which is that they help ease misery in a world that is unfair. The other side of the coin is that they are selling a pardon of guilt for their well-to-do donors. The charity arranges a transaction in which both parties find some benefit, and then take a cut of the action for themselves. They are businessman, is all. Religions then can be thought of as a highly sophisticated charities that actively instill the guilt/redemption dynamics that give it the best benefit. Look at how the Christian church evolved. The teachings of Jesus bestow a strong expectation of charitable acts and serving the poor, in opposition to the self-aggrandizing Jewish priestly class. The Church would go on to evolve concepts like Original Sin - bumping the guilt factor - and a Fire & Brimstone vision of Hell - adding a strong dose of fear to the mix. But even they would take it too far. A major gripe of the Lutheran mutineers was the the sale of Indulgences, which were seen as extortions to enrich the church rather than to serve the needy or the spiritual wellbeing of the congregation. The Church had overextended itself beyond the threshold of plausible deniability.
To survive, the Church must maintain its legitimacy before both segments of society. Of course it needs the affluent class to provide the economic lifeblood on which it depends, but it also must ensure that the needy also believe the Church to be a charity. If not, the wealthy will eventually get the message, and may even become embarrassed by their affiliation with the Church, which is equally devastating.
In that context, consider the statements made recently by a Democratic campaign staffer to an undercover Project Veritas investigator.
Remember our saying, modern day fairy tales start with ‘once I am elected.’The Democrats are actively engaged in creating the necessary environment for a religion to operate: a needy lower class and a guilty upper class. The poor in this country have it better than the poor have ever had it in the history of the world. They are far more likely to be overfed than malnourished, forcing us to redefine what is meant by poor. The neo-Church must convince them and a new underclass (minorities, LGBT, etc) that they are aggrieved, and "whip them into a frenzy" to give the orchestrated grievance public exposure. Then they must browbeat the whites into guilty servitude. Thus, the churchonomic cycle is completed. Both segments endorse (by vote) a Democrat government program the transfers wealth towards the bottom, with itself, of course, situated as the middleman with great legal powers and deep pockets.
Medicare for all, that will never happen.
Whip up” the poor into a “frenzy in order for them to vote.
You have to appeal to white guilt.
Liberal voters fall into one of three camps: needy recipient, guilty donor, or empowered middleman. If you wonder why people like Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton would support tax schemes that would greatly increase their own tax burdens, it is because they are so well-placed within the wealth transfers process that their wealth and power grow with the size of the government. Their shows of personal sacrifice are mere theater.
So if a charity is an economic entity that arbitrages a grievance/guilt disparity in the free market, and a religion is a charity that acts to exacerbate the disparity by driving grievance and/or guilt forces, the question is how can we destroy one that has become our enemy? Generally, it is neither possible nor desirable to purge charity from society. Grievance and guilt are normal sentiments of any society and healthy in moderation. It's normal to feel aggrieved for being denied what has been earned, or guilt for attaining what has not been earned. The notion that we could eradicate grievances from society reeks of social justice. It is utopianism. We must accept that no system will ever be perfect, that charity channels are necessary inefficiencies that arise in response to meritocratic gaps, and that religions will seek to multiply the effect of those forces.
The first step to countering a religion is to compete with its charitable underpinnings, because in a vacuum someone will fill the niche. Your charity must address the guilt/grievance market that actually exists. Again, we can't pretend we live in some social-justice utopia, and - as said here before - We Must Solve Our Problems of it's Just Going to be Communism. This doesn't mean adopting their mindset, or fighting fire with fire. It just means solving societal problem's and keeping the meritocratic gap small and safe from exploitation.
Second is to expose the religion's manipulations by telling the truth. There's no high bar here, no need to reach a million listeners or practice perfect logical deconstruction of their fallacies. Merely to exist and tell the truth is enough. If no one challenges a false religion, then it must be assumed to be legitimate. You can deny them that conclusion, and take great joy in possessing a mind that has not fallen to their influence, as few as the number of your brethren there might be.
The third step is just the preventative step, which is to not allow the meritocratic gap to grow very large in the first place. For a society, this means not falling prey to false schemes. For instance, socialism would seem to be a solution to the meritocratic gap: just use the government to balance the sheets. In reality, socialism always increases the meritocratic gap. Socialism is system that spots a meritocratic gap, offers a solution, which increases the gap, which gives ever more leverage to argue for socialism, and repeat until collapse. Vote for socialism, flee for capitalism, vote for socialism, etc. It is worth noting the minor concessions we might make with the left accumulate over time. They exacerbate the meritocratic errors that we should be working to reduce, giving more and move space for a false religion to grow and sing its siren's song. Quarry slabs are split from a single tiny crack, which is leveraged to tear the great monolith apart.
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