I agree to a certain extent but I also think you're overemphasizing religion as a set of beliefs rather than as a societal institution. Religion is, in essence, a useful social control mechanism that benefits a strong society. I've noticed that it's commonly slandered by people in Western society, indeed I've slandered it myself in the past, but once you realize the role it actually plays it makes a lot more sense. For example, it's fashionable for many people in our society to disassociate themselves from practicing any formal religion because to do so lacks logic. However, in most cases (the ones where religion has not been replaced by spirituality) the individual actually compensates for their lack of faith by replacing things like "God" with "the market" and "priests" with "psychiatrists". We're told to have faith in the market, to trust the market. Likewise we're told that if something ails us (on a mental level) we should seek the guidance of a psychiatrist (except where in the past we'd repent our sins to a priest who would prescribe us pennance, now we we're told to talk about our problems with a doctor that will prescribe us medication). Also, increasingly, whereas religion was used to bring communities together in the past, allowing people to meet others, now the workplace is trying to replace that function. I've noticed that people are becoming dependent on the their work to meet new people. Still, although we've (the West) tried hard to replace the benefits we've lost, since abandoning religion, the decadence, nihilism, substance dependence (1/3 of Australians are on prescribed drugs and at least 1/5 of Americans), and lack of any coherent values that permeate the post-industrial world seem to indicate we're suffering without it.
One of religion's strengths is that it provides common values to uphold. By getting rid of religion we also forsake these common values, i.e. the ethics of the multinational corporations that run things are based largely on "Game Theory (the guy from that movie, "A Beautiful Mind"). I think that's where this whole concept of "playing the game" came from. Ironically it's been proven that Game Theory (which is based on everyone always acting in their self-interest and by so doing benefitting everyone else) is bull shit, even Nash has admitted it was influenced by his psychosis, and studies show that only sociopaths and economists (the ones recording it's benefit) actually behave accordingly. Never-the-less this fallacious theory gained credence because facts and data were manipulated in order to promote it as "the truth."
Anyways I strongly recommend this 3 part BBC documentary, "The Trap", which anyone interested in our post-industrial maze can find in nice quality for free here:
http://stage6.divx.com/user/Ommu/vid...reedom?-Ep-1/3
You really just need to watch the first few moments to find out if you're interested