It’s very difficult to separate the word (and the experience of) ‘religion’ from the concept of God; and as soon as we start talking about God emotions tend to run a little high.

Firstly, the existence of God cannot be proven.
Secondly, the existence of God cannot be disproven.

Once these two facts are clearly understood it follows that all the power of all the priests in the world simply vanishes like morning mist; and instead of weakening the position of those seeking answers to their religious urges it actually strengthens it, because it removes the power of dogma to blight their search and admits the force of reason.

As with Rich, I think that you are missing an important point: by conflating institutional religion with the functions that this cognitive process performs in the species, confusion is increased; and greater damage may be done. What is vital is that we begin to act in response to what is real. The rejection of the processes of natural function associated with what we call religion rather than separating the Madness from the function would only substitute one Madness for another.

The role that what is called religion performs as social/environmental function – no matter how much it is Madness in its present form – is pervasive in the human species. Blaming the function for its insane present manifestation is a mistake. We don’t simply rip the sick liver from the patent, we replace it with one that works better…and try to get the patent to behave better in the future.