As a former Mason, the teachings are symbolic. Few people think they are historical. People don't really do symbolic anymore. We do TV.
Not be too much of a curmudgeon, but I don't think our society at this time has much of a philosophical bone left in it. As a result, we mostly reflect on ourselves as narcissists. Look at Facebook. It's use is a known cause of depression. We feel bad because others make their lives look so perfect or interesting. We get in flame wars on political topics. We no longer appeal to traditions like Locke or Rousseau. We don't reason about things. We feel and are offended.
If what I said is even mostly true, how do you build a society on that? At this point we've stared too long into the abyss. Perhaps we need the "make-believe crap" to bind us. Perhaps its not crap, but rather what the world is and our ignoring is leading to our own demise?
At its zenith, as with all things lofty, religion started to fade. In its setting the government rose. It took up the mantle of diety. It became father. We live in its world now. We are poorer for it.
Government takes power from the people and apportions it to its acolytes. Organization for its own sake is the status quo. To streamline government is to unemploye millions. Our calf requires total subservience with little benefit.
Perhaps we’ll find a way to control our new leviathan. Maybe we can yoke it to till the soil of communal need. We could even do that by trying to preserve the dignity of man. To do that we might have to abandon our new truth that life is an accident. That man has no more importance than a rock. This might be a noble lie. We need something for we have only straw to grasp now handed to us by our new religion postmodernism.
Those countries usually have "stronger" Governments too, with stronger social safety nets, and healthcare systems that don't try to shaft you for $40k when giving birth.
More to the point, someone should visualise the relationship between rates of religiosity and quality of public transportation, across a range of geographic areas. I can imagine the general trend, though there may be some outliers like Poland and Italy.
Content aside, this text sounds like a street-preacher in Battlestar Galactica or The Expanse.
Perhaps have more obvious and better make believe (flying spaghetti monster)?