It's a nice thought, that mutual respect would be enough to win out in the end. I used to believe that myself, and would hate it when other atheists took innocuous statements to grandstand upon. Now I support them wholeheartedly, because the frame of the debate has so radically changed. Religious people, across each of the 3 major monotheisms are all, every single one of them, either looking forward to, enabling, or otherwise taking part in a plot that involves the extinction of the human race. If they don't, they are not religious. It's as simple as that. You cannot be a Christian and say you don't at least look forward to the rapture and spending eternity an a ridiculously vaguely defined "heaven".
I used to hope that Gould's non-overlapping magisteria would apply to the world at large - believe what you want in private, but don't interfere with others. But even this doesn't hold up to the briefest of thought experiments. Imagine, for a moment, that you are a deeply religious person who also happens to exert power over your contemporaries. You could be the President, a senator, a mayor, a teacher, or even just the head of a family. Now, what faith? Doesn't matter. I will invent this faith: you could remove every nasty bit from the bible, and still be left with a faith that is eventually immoral. You don't even have to believe in hell. It's as simple as being offered the choice: Paradise for being "good", or not. Not can be living on in earth, or even the state of non-existence you were in before birth. You just have to believe that obeying the religious laws leads to untold paradise the likes of which makes earth seem a hell in comparison.
You're taught that your Holy Book is sacred. What could go wrong with that? Well, you must also then outlaw recycling - since if you follow the chain, a recycled Holy Book could end up as toilet paper. Definitely not Holy.
You're taught that jealousy is bad. Maybe it is! Maybe people should just be happy for others instead! But of course, it doesn't work out this way. Your neighbours wife is far more attractive than your own, which, as much as you might try to resist it, makes you a little jealous of him. It's impossible for humans to avoid thought crime, so the only chance for you avoiding this sin is to make sure that if your neighbours wife leaves the house, she does so, covered head to toe in a bulky, form concealing gown, with the merest of slits for vision.
Your religion compels you to ensure the well being of your neighbours, family, loved ones, etc. This seems an innocuous teaching. But in a faith where breaking religious edicts can put your eternal soul in jeopardy, then it's your responsibility to help prevent others from doing something so tragic. So you outlaw abortion. You outlaw contraception. You outlaw a heretical book - which if you find, you promptly burn.
And although these things might seem to be inconveniences to you and others at the time, as a religious person who believes in paradise and eternal damnation, you will willingly pick any temporal inconvenience in aid of an eternity in Paradise.
My eventual point in all of this is, religion is incompatible with morality and power. Morality obviously has an existence separate from religion, and is far more important than it. Power is essential in the running of society at all of its levels. But the moment you give someone with faith power, you cause in them a conflict. They abandon their faith for overall morality - not inflicting their choices on others. Or they pick their faith, and abandon morality, making edicts on behalf of others, "for their own good", whether they believe that way or not. This world has examples of both kinds of religious person. We're gambling with our lives though - all it takes is one religious person getting enough power, picking faith over morality, and using that power to enable the destruction of us all - for our own good.