(not personally religious, or really for surveillance in schools, would probably teach my children to build their skills circumventing it to be honest)

But surely that's a strawman. No one thinks religion would stop all evil or all people, but there certainly seems to be some kind of psychological effect from being brought up in such a framework, which can be observed, for instance, in latent guilt and residual fear of hell and judgement that happens when people leave certain christian sects for instance, which is totally absent and baffling to those not from such a cultural background.

I think its eminently feasible that SOME people are being 'held in line' through explicit or implicit fear of rules/authority/sanctity/hell/punishment/purity/etc provided by religious and social structures.