did you read what I wrote in my recent posts at least ? If you think we would have attained this degree of knowledge nowadays without the help of countless religious people in the middle age and later you are dead wrong. Every fucking piece of greek philosophy and knowledge would have been lost among countless other things. There would have been no universities, and thus would maybe still be living like 500 years ago. I said it 2 times but 90% of the educated people were ecclesiastic for a long time. Also who do you think tried to educate most people including peasants ?? it was ecclesiastics again, as the nobility would have been too glad to let others stay less educated than them (which they weren't a lot).
Isn't this heritage enough for you ? Do you realistically think a bunch of ignorant peasants and self-assured elite would have been of great help ?
Another example : Incas had an incredibly excellent knowledge of stars and mathematics. Why ? for religious purposes. Indeed, the same can be said for most civilizations, for which religion was a factor of scientific development (and sometimes was a brake, but saying one without recognizing the other is being utterly ignorant and obtuse) !
Also, there wouldn't be any great tasting beer available :P