Religion does not hinder science or social progress. Religion does not hinder science at all, if religion did do that, then we would not be have as much knowledge of the world as we have now. If religion did hinder with science, then theories that do not go in accordance with some religions (such as the Big Bang, and Darwin's theory of Evolution) would have never been able to become as known as they are nowadays. Also, I believe that religion is something you cannot get rid of, that is because of the fact that it is a belief and it will stay around for a long time, one does not simply get rid of religion.

I absolutely think that the world would not be a better place without religions. That is because religion is not what makes the world a worse place, what makes the world a horrible place is the people that follow the religion. That is because of the fact that not all people are the same, for example, in Islam you can find people that are very normal, yet there are others that do harm to huge amounts of people.