[Bayou]

Well, I dont know how you would explain Aetheism and Nihilism within such a context of a religious gene.
The way you use the definion is bit confusing, Spirituality is more akin to an emotion then Religion, Religion being defined as the service and or worship of god or the supernatural.
Religion is at it's most dangerous when it is "Organised Religion" which by definition would be the act of organising as the service of god or the supernatural, and because their is only one god, all must follow the rule of one.
Thus nobody thinks about the consequences of their actions, because they are inherently justified to those actions by a higher power.
In the historical context, humanity has had science as very recent developement in understanding of the world, before reality was defined through the filters of religion; thus religion has been the sole vehicle for organising humans into patterns of behavior that would have the most successful outcome in survival for a large # of people, while passing on knowledge to the next generation so that they could organise likewise in the future.
Even this has a wide discrepancy beetween different cultures, look how the Native American/Australian religious entitities were able to integrate human beings seemlessly into the framework of nature for such a long time, while european religions have cultured more and more instability while they progressed.
Yes more work is needed to be done for sure.