[AlexB138]

I think you're very close to right, but not quite. I think what we actually need is something that fills the role religion used to fit into, but that is compatible with the modern world. Religions have too many supernatural elements that attempted to explain the world before we actually had the tools to find real answers. People see that dissonance, and a lot of the social control imposed by religion, become distrustful, and "throw out the baby with the bathwater". It's unfortunate because they then lose a lot of the wonderful underlying messages and meaning religion can give to life.

I think a lot of people feel that gap, and that's why you see a lot of the flimsy "spirituality" that is essentially just feel-good notions cobbled together. Eliade talked about this in The sacred and the profane: The nature of religion. People want meaning beyond pleasing themselves, they've just completely lost it in the face of a culture advocating self interest and consumption, and increasing secularism.