Do We Still Need Religion?

In a few of my earlier blogs I have disscussed the issue of identity, and how religion has developed as a tool to build communities. However, there are many other tactics humans have developed to accomplish the same goal. Nationalism sticks out as being one of the more prominent ways to strengthen identity. Why then did nationalism develop so much later in human history than religion? Nationalism is quite old but, compared to religion, did not develop nearly as early or fast.

One theory might be that nationalism requires a much larger set of complex variables, such as governmental and economic structure, traditions, knowledge of surrounding geography, etc. Religion on the other hand, really only requires a group of people forming common beliefs in higher power(s) or morals.

Assuming religion developed solely to strengthen community, we now might ask: Do we still need religion? Other vehicles such as nationalism have developed that can build identity, many times much better than religion. Realistically humans will most likely never give up religion under the premise that other things just build community better, but it is an interesting way to think about it.