The world would be better off without ORGANIZED religion.
Personal relationships with God are productive. But that would mean individual decisions, based on personal, independant thought. Not for the faint of heart. It's a lot easier to just follow your book, and priest (rabbi, whatever), and be part of the "accepted" crowd. We want to belong, to not think, to not question, to not be ostracized. That hurts.
Organized religion leads to "us against them."
"WE are the true believers, and those that oppose us oppose God. Everyone else is wrong, and are going to hell."
Sound familier?
Oh, I'm tired of people blaming organized religion. As oppossed to what? Unorganized religion? If a group of people believes similarly they will gather and worship together. All religion is organized if followed by more than one person. Even the Laveyan Satanists say "Don't follow the sheep" and yet they all read Lavey's works and follow him. The atheists dismiss organized religion as beign weak-minded and "not thinking for yourself" and yet they give the same tired arguments again and again without thought (they really just seem mad at God).
Let's take your premise a step further... and prohibit any discussion of religion since discussing religion may influence someone thus diminishing independent thought.