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Does religion play a part there ? On a evidential level I'd seriously doubt it.  Though what it does does is provide comfort for those who need it/disbelive science/etc etc and if that helps them through the day, then fair play to the belivers..  

Major problem with religion though is it tends to get too powerful, like governments.
Of course that's the fault of those who run their various religions - the "prophets", the priests, all the various officials and administrators, and not to mention the nutcase fringe groups who create their own versions for the sake of some form of control.

So religion in and of itself isn't dangerous or bad and only can become so in the hands of leaders with their own agendas.

For many it provides comfort, but for many it provides the perfect justification for their anger and prejudices...

I personally have a serious problem with the fact that our not-so-distant ancestors allowed their religious leaders to become so powerful that they in effect set back our scientific progress by hundreds of years. The Roman Catholic Church imprisoned Galileo for telling the truth about what he saw in our solar system and set a precedent that scientists needed to be VERY  afraid of what they say.
Who knows how far along we  would be by now if it hadn't been for the organized and methodical suppression of knowledge that went on for centuries under the rule of The Church?

And now in the 21st century, with our massive radio telescopes, our Hubble space telescope, the Large Hadron Collider, and all our accumulated knowledge... it's payback time. ;-)

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