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It's an interesting truth that we could choose to do all the good religion has done over the last 100K years of human history... and religion was not required to do it. Rational goodness is every bit as effective as goodness practiced out of religion..and you don't get all the bad shit, like clogging the Seine with bodies of Huguenots because the Queen of France said it might be a good idea at the time...to pick one more-or-less random example out of history.
I don't doubt for one second that way back in pre-history there were humans who thought to themselves "all this jabber about the gods in the trees and sky and earth...it's all just shit." But cultural norms would have been so strong, you'd be killed for saying such a thing..and in some places, you still can be.
The notion that religion motivates us to do good in combat against our evil nature is crap for simpletons. We have a human nature dictated by our genetic evolution and our cultural norms..our rational minds should be able commit good acts instead of evil acts without requiring a flying-spaghetti-monster to Make us do it.
Fighting emotional urges to evil acts is no easy matter..but the notion that religion justifies itself by making that fight easier has always struck me as a cop-out, an unacceptable way to justify all the unjustifiable evil the genetic bias toward religion has caused in human existence.
The only way to fight a genetic bias is with our rational minds..otherwise, we're no better than non-sentient animals.
And, of course, religion or not, an argument could be made that, in fact, we are no better than those animals...far worse, perhaps. Depends on how you define "better."
