<p>I think it’s a rather useless question because some kind of religion would exist in any society, even if the religion was atheistic humanism.</p>
<p>If your real question is “would we be more advanced without theistic moralistic religion”, then I’d say that it’s unlikely.</p>
<p>We would know more about human biology without moral scruples against using living subjects… And maybe we would know more about ways of undermining opponents and waging war if we didn’t have religion to unite people into sides.</p>
<p>But until recent history, religion was the only unifying force that allowed scientific discoveries to be preserved and spread. In most ancient societies the priests/clergy were also the academics.</p>