[1] Its program included the abolition of compulsory baptism, confirmation and communion, the abolition of compulsory religious oaths, the abolition of compulsory religious education in schools, the introduction of civil marriage and the introduction of the right to leave the state church without the obligation to join another religious denomination at the same time, as well as the separation of church and state.
In fact, the aspiration to full freedom of religion had first appeared in 1887 when the lecturer Viktor Heikel and Mathilda Asp [sv; fi] founded Suomen uskonvapaus ja suvaitsevaisuusyhdistys ("The Finnish Society for Religious Freedom and Tolerance").The chairman of the Prometheus Society, who came under fierce attack from church circles, was Edvard Westermarck; the vice-chairman was Georg Schauman and the longest-serving secretary was historian Svante Dahlström.
Its principles were rooted in the pan-European revolution in which empiricism, evolution, and liberalism were gaining ground in the scholarly world.
The Prometheus Society gave lectures not only on humanistic subjects but also on theology and theosophy, with future Archbishop Erkki Kaila, among others.
[6][7] The society was dissolved after the Civil War, when the state authorities found its activities to be propagandistic.