Comment 22 by Bipedal Primate :

I'm not particularly fond of G. K. Chesterton's "When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing -- they believe in anything.", because it's simply an appeal to "belief in belief", but it's still probably true, though.

But of all dumb replacements for religion the worst one is not a conspiracy theory, but simply political correctness. Also known as 'The Matrix", for those who took some time to analyze the film by the same name. That one is the true mind killer. The consensus which thinks for you. And if people aren't simply dumb, they're either hysterical or dogmatic. There's no pill against that.

...and I assume you are aware of the group of people who think this world is actually the Matrix? Rather than the movie's view of us being slaves, we are in a dream in which we think this world is actually real. In "reality" we are One with God and have simply forgotten this. We live lives of strife and lack because we feel that God is somewhere out there and not within. This is a New Age view, but all religions have this concept of another realm in one form or another.