Religion has the rules that allow for society to function stably, starting with the Golden Rule, and working outward from there.
The problem with religion is that it requires belief, and belief is difficult to fabricate. Philosophers have debated for centuries whether you can have religions’ rules for social order, without actually having the religion itself, and it appears that probably you cannot. The belief in a divine authority is what makes those rules permanent and, I guess, sacrosanct.
But when today’s religious leaders insist on defining that belief in terms that are incompatible with modern scientific knowledge, the belief becomes impossible to maintain for many intelligent people. It’s not necessary for those leaders to do this. St. Augustine long ago realized that when science and the Bible conflict, that science must be given its due. The Bible, in his view, was given by God to a primitive tribe and so was expressed in terms that a primitive tribe could understand. A more sophisticated world needs to re-define those Biblical terms so that they are not out of keeping with a more sophisticated understanding of the natural world. That is the challenge for western religion today. How to define what is meant by the word “God” in terms that someone who has taken college Biology can understand. I believe that is possible, but I believe that few religious people try to do it.
Why dumb it down?
"I believe that is possible, but I believe that few religious people try to do it."
Oh, there's plenty of 'em out there. Check out any of the Mainline Protestant denominations that are indistinguishable from the world.