Yes, laughter and storytelling around the campfire fosters closeness feelings, but societies are hardly united by laughter. "Stores," however, are another matter!
Religious stories told and believed in common
do provide a sense of community. (
Why atheism makes you mean - SciForums.com)
And, yes, group living now needs all that because we are not evolved to live in such large groups, in societies. We evolved in hunting-gathering groups of only perhaps 40 or more individuals through millions of years of evolution. It is basic to our social nature. We are stressed up by being massed together and divided by a multitude of different beliefs---especially when they are all old and obsolete, unscientific.
we can do better with a new ideology, one that can unite the world . . .
