Times Online has part of the reason I remain not religious:

RELIGIOUS belief can cause damage to a society, contributing towards high murder rates, abortion, sexual promiscuity and suicide, according to research published today.

It is not that I think there is anything wrong with religion, just that I think the hucksters and scammers use religion to lead the sheep so that they may exploit them for personal gain.

Put another way, if you were God would you require people to acnowledge your existance to grant them eternal peace? If I were God I would weigh the good and the bad, and if there is any sort of afterlife I would determine the outcome based on the sum of the pieces. Good people should still generally be good people even if they do not have some overbeing controlling them through fear.

Why the fuck are more religious societies so damaged when compared to less religious ones? Is it that people in need are more likely to ask for it so they are more religious? If that is the case they why don't they get what they need?

The answer is IMHO, at least in part, that scumbags use religion to exploit the country and leave people with shells of their former selves looking elsewhere for mystical answers when nonmystical answers lie within.