Yeah, that's a nice theory. Reality in my personal experience is, religion(s) divide people like nothing else in human history. It gives tons of people who live in sort of constant denial/ignorance of reality (I'll get to that) a sense of smugness. (Practically) everybody believes their faith is the right one, and everybody else has it wrong. 'They' are outsiders, and maybe if we are kind we accept them nevertheless, and maybe we won't.
With Christianity as a religion that only 1/3 of the world say/pretend to believe in, but mostly don't act like they actually do, it just doesn't make any sense at all. So 2/3 of this world, and most of those 120 billions of humans which ever lived will burn in hell eternally? A bit unfair to those billions who were born long before some delusional crazy person created yet another sect of Judaism, or even invention of Judaism by inspiring with some other monotheistic religion (maybe Zoroastrianism).
Some people told me that faith begins when rationality ends - that might be my problem/situation. Every single thing, event, experience, anything I ever learned is rational, causal - that's how reality works. That's not how religion works. I won't stop my brain, not for you, anybody else, nor religion.
That's a problem so many with religions - they became these entrenched corporations of our minds, say like Oracle since we're on HN. They create strict hierarchy, set of rules that come out of nowhere, get highly political internally and externally.
if people would stick to the original faith only, kept it as something personal, optional and not so divisive as in current form, maybe religions wouldn't be losing so many people just in few generations.
Its perfectly fine and appropriate to ask people to be good humans. But you definitely don't need any religion for that. And in my personal opinion, no fear of almighty god and eternal punishment ever made an evil person into a good one.