"Imagine no religion," John Lennon sang. Suppose we could take it a step beyond imagination and make religion disappear. Would we thereby eliminate the problems to which religion is supposed to be the solution? Of course not. Suppose we destroyed all the hospitals, old folks' homes, and mortuaries. Would we thereby remove from the world sickness, old age, and death? That trio of woes that put young Prince Siddartha on the path to Buddhahood? No, we would merely have gotten rid of certain ways of dealing with them.
Religion deals with real problems.
The problems cannot be solved by any other means.
Better the admittedly questionable solutions religion offers than no solutions at all.
Those who denigrate religion but cannot put anything better in its place do a disservice to humanity.
Suppose religion is utterly devoid of truth in all of its central claims: there is no God, no soul, no post-mortem rewards or punishments, no moral world order, no final justice, no meaning beyond what we can create for ourselves, which meaning, arguably, is a pseudo-meaning, no higher destiny, no salvation.
Then there is No Exit, to cop a phrase from a certain French existentialist.