Try to do rpm -e.

Something like:

$ sudo rpm -e python-2.7.5-86.el7.x86_64

Python is required by many of the Linux distributions. Many system utilities the distro providers combine (both GUI based and not), are programmed in Python.

The version of python the system utilities are programmed in I will call the "main" python. For Ubuntu 12.04 e.g. this is 2.7.3, the version that you get when invoking python on a freshly installed system.

Because of the system utilities that are written in python it is impossible to remove the main python without breaking the system. It even takes a lot of care to update the main python with a later version in the same major.minor series, as you need to take care of compiling it with the same configuration specs as the main python. This is needed to get the correct search paths for the libraries that the main python uses, which is often not exactly what a .configure without options would get you, when you download python to do a python compilation from source.

Installing a different version from the major.minor version the system uses (i.e. the main python) normally is not a problem. I.e. you can compile a 2.6 or 3.4 python and install it without a problem, as this is installed next to the main (2.7.X) python. Sometimes a distro provides these different major.minor packages, but they might not be the latest bug-release version in that series.

The problems start when you want to use the latest in the main python series (e.g. 2.7.8 on a system with main python version is 2.7.3). I recommend not trying to replace the main python, but instead to compile and install the 2.7.8 in a separate location (mine is in /opt/python/2.7.8). This will keep you on the security fix schedule of your distribution and guarantees someone else tests compatibility of the python libraries and against that version (as used by system utilities!).

For any development using that version of python, use virtualenv, (or virtualenvwrapper) and setup a 2.7.8 environment using:

virtualenv -p /opt/python/2.7.8/bin/python /tmp/test
source /tmp/test/bin/activate

(the second line assumes you are using bash)

Probably what I'd do is first find all the easily identifiable python packages:

 rpm -qa | grep python

Then erase them using

 rpm --erase pkg1 ... pkgn

If there are dependencies flagged, then if you can include these in the packages to be deleted.

You CAN override the dependency checks by including the

 --nodeps

flag after the --erase flag on the rpm command line. Not always recommended of course but sometimes necessary.

Then with all the packages downloaded from what ever source you have you then do:

 rpm --install pkg1 ... pkgn

Again, if possible satisfy all the dependencies. But you can override this behavior using the:

 --nodeps --force

flags after the --install flag. Again, not always recommended but sometimes necessary.

Uninstalling the system Python is a bad idea. There are many other packages and softwares that depend on it. It'll be better that you use python2.7 by either modifying the $PATH or creating an alias e.g. python2.7 that points to the python that you installed in /opt dir.