Is religion only surviving because it a good tool for social order?

In a world where it is possible to go to the moon and back, to have a heart transplant and keep on living if yours has failed, to communicate instantaneously with people hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, how is it possible that the archaic tradition of believing in a God/s still exists? I'm not talking about spirituality here, I think it is safe to say that all people have a degree of belief in the paranormal - perhaps originating from an awareness of our own ignorance and the fundamental mysteries of birth and death - I'm talking about about the staunch conviction that there is a specific God who has rules for the way you're to live, who loves you but also judges you, and threatens you with either hell or separation from him if you disobey. If nothing else, fear is a great way to control the mes. Fear of retribution in this life or the next, is a very strong motivator for behaving in a socially acceptable manner. And ALL major religions promote group loyalty, in one form another. The rulers of societies are much aware of this, and often enlist as members of a religion to preserve the group loyalty that so suppresses rebellion and the possibility of civil war. Religion and patriotism go hand in hand in this instance. This is probably why separation of church and state was seen as so important in American history, but even now but the leaders still use this principle; the majority of Americans are loyal to Christianity, and a non-Christian candidate would never have been elected president. So has religion persisted despite our flourishing understanding of the ways things actually work because is it a highly effective form of social control?