society is chock full of people who have exited religion

Where the church and state has been separated the fear of doing so is decreased. This is not the case in all religious countries indeed. Hence why public education, which is state funded, should therefore be devoid of religion except for in history classes.

But is that a problem with religion or with government? To some extent it’s both but the real issue is the ability of people to do violence to you with impunity. In modern society this is a feature of government and not religion.

It’s religion that causes people to want to do violence, the government doesn’t interfere because it has been poisoned by that exact same religion.