Not all regions have a strict non-scientific theology, Tao (or Dao, from tao te ching by Lau Tzu) doesn't directly contradict
science and yet many people would call it a religious text. Many of our
current mathematical models come from Vhedic scholars and a lot of
history can be found in various parts within religions (i.e
unique and rare commentary on viking raids by Irish monasteries). But to
teach kids there's a man with a beard in the sky who's always watching
and will send you to hell for being bad etc. is brainwashing and lying, but then
so is telling them a man with a beard and a red suit comes down your
chimney in the night of the winter solstice to eat your milk and cookies in exchange for gifts, but that's a different story. Science requires a need to accept that there may be other paradigms of understanding that become revealed in time, therefore disregarding all possibilities of how reality works is flawed thinking . (E.g the recent studies on epigentics has made what you learned in school about genetics simply wrong, we don't inherit all out features from our ancestors, we can actually change our gene's functions through changes in our environment as subtle as intangible as emotions.)
And it's true, religion is related to a lot fear, it uses fear, it creates fear and it pray on the fearful. I'd say religion creates phobia, "obey or be damned forever!" But it also helps the fear sometimes too.
Disregarding possibilities because you can't comprehend them (for whatever reasons, it's irrelevant) works both ways. Our body is a community of cells, each one is an individual, take a single cell out from the body and place it on the table, it's still alive, but it's no longer you, it's life, but does it have consciousness? Where does consciousness even begin? Now, Religion is political control over masses using the power of belief.. call it hypnosis. However spirituality is the internal search for the root of your personal consciousness, the only thing we can truly be sure exists. There is no requirement to believe in a man in the sky, however it can raise questions about the nature of reality. That philosophical search, which requires changes in perception (acquiring and discarding beliefs and paradigms of understanding), is the road to attaining an understanding of spirituality, but it MUST be done without dictatorship or requirement.
Religion has become a matter of ruling people rather than teaching them,
that is the real reason why religion is so bad, it poses as a means to
find a spiritual link, but instead offers a social one to community of
conformists under a strict hierarchy. By all rights anyone should be
able to become pope, but they've made it so you have to climb the ranks
and you have to believe in something (isn't that a weird concept in itself?.. being
strictly required to believe something) that you may or may not
have researched, but are required to ignore any contradicting evidence of it. 
Psychologically speaking, the idea of god is really
just a sense of the internal self, it's our subconscious trying to
communicate with us in symbols we are willing to consciously accept,
which is why we think we see miracles etc [we want to, we are willing to see them] some people may
think it's a weird earth spirit, or god, or chi or whatever character it
portrays itself as for you to accept it's subtle messages.Personally I see my subconscious inner-self as the crew and components to my ship (my body, my automatic
functions etc.) and my consciousnesses, or me, is the captain. 
Religion tends to say god is in the sky and those closest to heaven, which is in the sky, can communicate to him the best.. i.e the pope and religious hierarchy. When in actual fact God is as deep inside the mind as you can get. So the irony is while people are reaching outward to as an external place as you can possibly get in terms of mental comprehension, to communicate with what they think is God, they actually need to look inwards and then they will see the true nature of what their god really is, themselves, a deeper, vaster universe... therefore religion is deceit, but spirituality can still be a valid parameter of scientific understanding (but granted also a subjective one).
Religeon serves a purpose for people who have mental blocks and at the same time search to satisfy their psychological needs", there are poor people out there who need a deceiving guidance. To have an intolerance toward a phenomenon that you don't fully understand displays a lack of education or awareness on the subject, just as telling a child Santa doesn't exist because you know he doesn't exist you haven't proved you know more than someone to that person, you've only proved you don't understand why that child should not have had his or her belief forcefully taken from them.
Religion should not be eradicated. Millions of lonely housewives, poor old
ladies, young and confused teens, homeless people etc will have lost
whatever grain of hope that encourages them, just because others feel they know what's best because they know an ounce of truth. Religion forces belief onto people, an
activity unfavored by atheists, and yet that is exactly what they propose
should be done to it, they propose to act like the Christians did to
native peoples they've encountered, because they saw themselves as being
of a higher understanding they forcibly tore away the native religions
from their people, it's the exact same thing and should be judged the
exact same way, no matter how different the context seems. If people
WANT their religion, they have right to have it, and no matter how much
you disagree you don't have a right to take anything from anyone, most
especially their thoughts, their sense of identity, their sense of self
and any means to satisfy their desperate needs.
