Unfortunately, the phenomenon of social dogma that gives rise to religion has an evolutionary advantage. It’s how you get a bunch of people to focus on a common ends without spending too much time and energy being critical of the means. Humans who rally unquestioningly behind some percieved commonality get stuff done, regardless of how ethical it is. It’s why the Catholic church is immune to “cancel culture”. If any other modern institution had a documented history of figureheads systematically abusing children, they would be finished. But if everyone involved can say “that’s just the actions of a few evil individuals, they don’t represent my faith,” then they’ve achieved social immunity.

I honestly believe that until we see a belief system that emphasizes human dignity over corporate profits, we will continue our race to the bottom of capitalism. This isn’t something a democracy “reasons” its way out of, because falsifiable beliefs based in reason will always lose some argument (by design).

I think the Japanese religion of Shinto is pretty close to a best case scenario for a religion. It’s actually really fascinating. At its core is a belief that a spirit or godlike entity inhabits every single thing, living or inanimate, so you should treat everything with the respect of a divine being. But what you wouldn’t expect is, most people don’t literally believe these gods exist, they just see that practicing the religion makes their society better. In the west, we have a huge number of “non-practicing religious” people, but in Japan there is a huge number of “shinto-practicing non-religious” people. Combined with the fact that it (somehow) doesn’t have any figurehead trying to coopt it, it’s basically exclusively a net win for their society.

Btw abolishing religion is also be the quickest way to convince a bunch of people to start/join a religion.