Agreed, depression can also be caused by poor environmental conditions. Being depressed can make escaping those conditions harder or even impossible; and that is assuming that the conditions /can/ be escaped in the first place.

My own personal theory is that at least some of the 'depression' we are seeing today is the result of dysfunction in society and the general social contact. People no longer have a place they feel they can belong, a stable /career/ path let alone one that offers actual opportunity to become the best they want to be out of their potential.

Perhaps religion plays a role too. I mean, our brains evolved to be religious, and now we're basically shutting that part off, without asking if that's a good idea from a neurological/psychological (scientific) viewpoint.

This. This is why, as an atheist, I would never recommend atheism to anyone else, much less actively try to change their minds. Spirituality is a key psychological organ, and while some people can fulfill that without organized religion, it's much more difficult that way.

My own beliefs about religion are that it came to be partly as a way of 'binning' 'unsolvable' problems out of the way and also as a way of helping people be less bad to each other.

The trouble starts when you mix different (or groups without) religions; the defect in the meme shows ugly results such as the crusades, etc.

It also gives you some way to try to grasp the transcendent and provide meaning to your life. Those things are hard to replace with better science for the hard problems and better ethics/government for the behavior issues.

That's Joseph Campbell's theory, that myth plays a critical role in the health of a society.

It seems we no longer have a prevailing/guiding myth or set of values that society as a whole genuinely believes in.

Yet, hopefully

How did you figure out that "we" are basically shutting that part off"? I live in a part of California that is less Christian than ever, but no less religious than the deep South. And many dating profiles say "spiritual but not religious". Perhaps there's just as much of that part as in the past?

I think that Science is religion to most commoners nowadays. Quantum computing, AI and self-driving cars are the prophecies, Teslas and iPhones the miracles, Elon Musk and Steve Jobs the prophets.

That's gotta only be true for a small subset of techies; for a majority of people, religion is religion still. We haven't figured out a secular way to induce feelings of exhaltation (ayn rand tried, I don't think it worked for most people).

Religion is a system of itself, with the same failures, and has caused great mental harm to many people.

Not on their own, obviously.

They must be combined with a decent helping of psychotherapy.

Combined with psychotherapy, I'd say they're superior to drugs, because they don't mess with the body in hard-to-measure ways. A healthy lifestyle lets the body adjust itself naturally.

Keep your opinions to things you have experience with.