I believe that religion is one of the many roots of evil, and has been since the early Catholic church (and, in the Jewish form, since Moses). It gets in the way of man's pure thinking. Most people believe, thanks to religion, that they were born into sin and only Jesus' death can save them from it. Plus, it wastes valuable resources.
One example: I believe, after seeing the Bible in context, that we were not spiritually imperfect at birth. We were, in fact, morally and spiritually perfect (albeit needing to learn what is good for self and society). We became infected with religious bias as we were told that bad people were to die or to suffer damnation. We were told that so many pleasurable things (which were in fact amoral) were condemned by God. This has limited us from feeling comfortable with things that we should not be uncomfortable with (like sex). Sexual taboos, racism, prejudice, and hatred all develop thanks to religion.
What we need is a God-free society. That would allow people's natural drives to be unsullied by taboos. In turn, people would be more rational in thinking, and society would grow. Now, to rid us of the other major root of evil--those damn world leaders that are hellbent on doing the big companies' bidding and preventing us from objective research...