I'll admit religion does produce simple rules for getting along with one another on a basic level, not always emotionally healthy, but usually effective. Since the overwhelming majority of people are drones, they need simple rules and egocentric delusions that give purpose and value to their repetitive lives.
While some religions get carried away, for the most part, it does an effective job at pacifying the masses.
If the average person realized what truly rational people were saying, they would collapse into a depression and stop producing & reproducing (their evolutionary purpose). They simply do not have the mental architecture to handle a non-egocentric reality.
The delusional person fights hard against obvious rational ideas because, at some level, they now the high price of consciously admitting their true place in the universe. Think of Douglas Adam's Total Perspective Vortex from Hitchhiker's Guide, "The prospective victim of the TPV is placed within a small chamber wherein is displayed a model of the entire universe - together with a microscopic dot bearing the legend 'you are here'. The sense of perspective thereby conveyed destroys the victim's mind; it was stated that the TPV is the only known means of crushing a man's soul."
If the goal of evolution is survival, and having multiple levels of mindless redundancy is an effective means of accomplishing survival, then why are we trying to wake the sheep?
Maybe we are taking this religion thing too personally and not realizing the reason it is so unquestioningly successful is that it is serving a massive evolutionary requirement. So far, nothing has been able to replace religion's effectiveness at pacifying and giving purpose.
Unfortunately, modern technology combined with religious fanaticism is now threatening humanity. But attacking personal religious narcissism isn't going to work, narcissism will always protect and justify itself.
The goal should be to replace the old opium with another more up to date drug of delusion. The addicts will always be addicts, but they can change addictions. Rather than fighting religion, we need to replace it with something equally self serving, but less destructive.
Obviously, to most people, rational thought and personal responsibility is pale compared to the drama and self glorification of religion. So rational thought will remain in the hands of the minority that appreciate its beauty.
However, for the sheep, we need a better mass delusion.
