I'm a religious person. Not a Christian or even a monotheist (some of us aren't), nor one who thinks my religion is of any relevance to government, or society as a whole. Although you mentioned Jesus, you *said* "target the religious". Perhaps we'd be better targeting fascists?
Correlation is certainly not causation. Fascist and Christians are quite correlated here in the US, where I assume you are not. I don’t care what people believe. I do care very much if they try to destroy our government. Pardon me if I fight back in kind.
Pardon me if I don't pardon you. If you aren't targeting properly, you won't hit the proper target. All you need to do is say 'fascists' and you'd fix that. Or if you insist that it's definitely the religious trappings that are the real issue, you could identify 'dominionists' and hit the mark.
In fact, the entire anti-science movement in the US has it’s origins in religion. We have significant populations that can’t tolerate being told the earth being older than 6000 years and that we evolved from lower life forms. This is hurting us quite badly. Yes, I blame religion.
Again, you ascribe to "religion" attributes of faith specific to early-modern western Christianity, modified and deployed as a political control system. Aversion to the idea of an old Earth is rather particularly a characteristic of Christianity, and then only some of its branches.
Yes, I blame religion as an enabler, which it very much is.
Forcing other to conform is a very common and problematic religious activity. It’s not confined to Christianity by any means. To not see this as a driving element in our current fascist infestation misses a very key point.
Forcing others to conform is something humans do. Understanding that religions are frequently weaponised as tools to this end, and that dominionist Christianity is currently one of the primary forms of such is essential. Blundering about throwing accusations at "religion" is inefficient targeting.
And here we enter the “guns don’t kill people. People kill people” phase of your argument. You’re a gun owner arguing unrestricted gun use is okay because you yourself are okay. This is followed by arguing gun minutia. Guns like religion hold a protected status in my country. We need controls.