It is true that religion helps people from, for example, turning to crime by forcing them to consider the 'wrath' of an almighty entity and the repercussions that that would bring about.
At the same time it is true that people will use the excuse of religion to commit acts of violence, among other things, to further their cause and provide some amount of 'mental reasoning' for their actions, either because they actually believe in the religion or to seem 'better' in the eyes of others.
Either way, if religion didn't exist nowadays the roles would either reverse or everything would remain the same.I choose to believe that people are good or bad based on either their own unique personality or from their childhood learning which can play a fundamental rule in our process of growing up, especially ideals picked up from parents and teachers (Social Learning Theory), instead of it being the cause of some religion.
I am gonna add a note here and say that religion has and is being used for therapeutic reasons as well nowadays, such as in trying to bring about the good in people and make them forget a past thing they may have done and aspire for greatness through pure-of-heart means (fairytale style)
Nevertheless, I am not against religion, as I am a follower of a religion myself, but neither do I completely adhere by it. In the end not much would change.Good people would be good,bad people would be bad.
People.People never change.