qwe, I'm well aware that there are religious communities that peddle ruthless authoritarianism and groupthink, to the detriment of perfectly healthy and harmless people who don't fall into line. I agree with you that authoritarianism is a step backward for people, too, and if we're to evolve into a higher form of sentient being (which is a dream of yours I've also shared, and enjoy your musings on immensely), it won't come from a system that is intolerant to those who are different or new.
However, where I disagree with you is that religion is the root of the problem. I think some people are going to create communities of people who share their spiritual goals and moral values, with names and symbols and vested material interests like any other human institution, no matter how they've been taught to behave socially. More educated people are less likely to choose organized religion, because they have more options and venues available to them for solidarity and moral support. But even a goodly number of them find or create some form of organized religion that fits them -- there are even religions, largely populated by the highly educated, that require little to nothing in the way of supernatural belief, but in every other regard are most recognizably religion.
I just think it's an issue of geography and access to resources and opportunities. Good seed sprinkled on arid land will grow subpar crops. Likewise with human communities -- ones that are lacking in natural resources, transportational convenience, jobs, and other good reasons to continue living there, are going to produce communities of people that are subpar, and weak in meeting the needs of people who are even just a little bit different. Such places lend themselves to authoritarian social orders, because authoritarianism at least guarantees nobody (except those at the very top) will take liberties with scarce resources. In a place where there's potentially much to fight and get antsy about, authoritarianism buys a brittle sort of harmony at the price of the submission of the many to the few.
The American Heartland has a lot of economic problems. The people who live there are largely those left behind by the late 20th century migration to the coastal cities. Their livelihoods are undercut by the complete loss of America's industrial sector, and the undercutting of a need for agricultural labor by machinery, huge greedy agro-corporations, and cheap migrant labor. Coalition behavior, knee-jerk 'falling into line', is the tortuga maneuver (that's a reference to Roman military history) of any threatened people who aren't very powerful individually. Naturally they'll take well to religious punditry that encourages clinging to things that worked in the past, unquestioning loyalty, and venting collective frustrations on those who don't fall into line.
qwe, I think it might be time to ask yourself if the Heartland is really the best place for someone of your smarts and talents. The place, and the institutions that rule it, won't change until the place becomes much more economically hospitable for humanity in general, and that's anyone's guess when that'll be! I know I couldn't live there long term.
I don't spite the people who cling to the Midwest as home. Nor to the native peoples of the Arabian penninsula. Nor those of the Andes mountains. It's not their fault their values have no truck with the likes of you and me -- they simply adopt the values they need to adopt to survive, under less than ideal conditions.
I'd say our best hope is to aim for policy changes that eliminate vast discrepancies in human enfranchisement and economic opportunity across the earth (something all religious communities I've ever attended willingly have preached as a central tenet, btw.) If that were to happen, you'd have a situation like you presently see on N. America's coasts -- a 'some do some don't' pattern of religious adherence, with most of the practiced religions being pretty benign.
Bottom line: the state of religion in any place is an effect, not a cause, of the constraints of living there.