Religion of all societies across the world is one of the largest factors in the creation of culture and artistry. Almost every great historical artist used religious and ancient mythical figures as a basis for their art work. Religion gave the peoples of different places a way to bond early on (though later on these things caused people to disgree once they discovered other cultures). We pretty much owe all of classical and ancient cultures to religion and mythology.
And while religion may cause problems, and cause humans to retain ignorance, it also gives us a way to escape and to have hope in the face of the dark, dark world around us. I have a religion that I value, and while I'm not what most people would call "religious" I am atleast spiritual. I'm a Buddhist, and if you look at Eastern art, culture, and literature, you will see that alot of it is based around Taoist, Buddhist, Shinto, and Hindu subject matter and teachings.
The same goes for the west. Greek literature, art, and culture is based around the Gods of Olympus and the heroes of myth. This was later adopted by and added upon by the Romans. In the middle east, religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam formed the basis for art, culture, and literature.
Alot of people may say they do not need or want religion in the world, but without religion, the cultures that got us to the place where we are at now would never have existed. My own validation of spirituality is the expression of human spirit, mentality, and the soul through art, and I don't think its any coincendence that many old artists favorite subject matters were those of a spiritual nature.
Its fairly obvious that without religion, the world would be a very bleak, and honestly, boring place. So no, it wouldn't be a better place without it.
