Yes, absolutely.
Religion makes everyone better actually, not because it "controls" our lower natures, but because it gives a way to rise above them. When you tell people that there is nothing beyond the material than it all becomes a quest for cheap pleasures which drives people to ever increasing degenerate behaviors. Given that material reality is finite, nothing in this world can ever really be fulfilling so people are perpetually doomed to chase the next dopamine high without ever actually being satisfied.
Basically, without religion people end up living life as if they were drug addicts, and it doesn't matter what your "addiction" is, whether it's about having lots of sex, making tons of money, being famous etc it's never enough, even for people who can obtain all those things.
Being "free" from the constrains of religion just means being a slave to your passions and your own animal nature. The constrains of religion are actually liberating because they "free" you from said passions and said nature. The modern conception of freedom is actually bondage, where as the old religious bondage was actually freedom.