Efforts to minimize religion last remnant of religion in its archaic form

René Girard I See Satan Fall Like Lightning

The modern tendency to minimize religion could well be, paradoxically, the last remnant among us of religion itself in its archaic form, which seeks to keep the sacred at a safe distance. The trivialization of religion reflects a supreme effort to conceal what is at work in all human institutions, the religious avoidance of violence between the members of the same community. p 93