Religion is just a vehicle that evil people exploit to motivate others to do what they want. It is not in and of itself the problem. The problem is (1) the bad people and (2) the fools that blindly believe anything that their leader/priest/pastor/rabbi/imam tells them to do. That vehicle just needs to be something that a large number of people share in common and are motivated by. For example, Hitler convinced Germans that their common economic problems could be blamed on a small minority of the population and that they deserved to take what they wanted from the rest of the world. If religion didn't exist other motivations would just be substituted.

I really do think this episode of South Park is pure genius:

http://www.southparkstudios.com/full...0e12-go-god-go