I'm not saying you don't believe what you're saying. On the contrary that is again probably the worst part of rationalization. We genuinely believe what we convince ourselves of, while imagining ourselves to be objectively and plainly correct. As for morality and religion, it's well accepted (at least academically) that there is a significant correlation between religiosity and reduced asocial behavior at the individual level. This [1] study is a meta-study of some 109 other studies and offers a broad overview.
Keep in mind that the obvious exceptions like South America = high religiosity + high criminality or Scandiland = low religiosity + low criminality, are group/macro level issues and not individual. Very small numbers of highly sociopathic individuals or groups can have an extreme effect on overall stats. For example the homicide rate for St. Louis is higher than for any country in the world, yet obviously the percent of people of homicidal tendency in St. Louis is negligible. Macro level stats and individual level tendencies are very different things.
Keep in mind that the obvious exceptions like South America = high religiosity + high criminality or Scandiland = low religiosity + low criminality, are group/macro level issues and not individual. Very small numbers of highly sociopathic individuals or groups can have an extreme effect on overall stats. For example the homicide rate for St. Louis is higher than for any country in the world, yet obviously the percent of people of homicidal tendency in St. Louis is negligible. Macro level stats and individual level tendencies are very different things.
[1] - https://academic.oup.com/edited-volume/41333/chapter/3523552...