This thread is treading on a potentially explosive debate. I'll stay away from it...but after the quote from E.B. White and the statement that religion hasn't advanced for thousands of years, I couldn't resist posting one thought provoking (at least for me) idea from Plato.
We look back on Athens in 245BC as representative of many of our Democratic ideals. Yet this system couldn't survive the Pelopponesian war. Seeing this destruction, Plato, who distrusted Democracy, wrote in The Republic, that society's leadership must invent the concept of God to teach and provide justice. They must also invent the idea of a pleasant afterworld as a way to keep citizens good. In describing what children must learn, he says "...What next? If they are to be courageous they must learn still other lessons. They must learn not to fear death-or do you think anyone could be brave who is afraid of death? No, I don't. What about any man who believes the underworld is real and terrible? Will he be likely to be fearless? In battle, will he prefer death to defeat and slavery? He will not. Then we must expand our supervision to those who write and tell stories about these matters, too. We must ask them to speak better of Hades [the afterworld] rather than worse, for what they tell us now is not true, nor is it edifying for those who are going to be warriors." In the Myth of Er, Plato then describes the great Greek heros going to a heaven and the terrible ones going to a hell. Plato was the first one to write about the afterworld in this way. You will not find anything like this in the Old Testament. Christianity incorporated these ideas as it sought to spread through Greece and Rome.
As our country both pursues more faith-based initiatives and prepares for war, I think Plato's comments are fascinating.