Religion: fact, fiction, or something more?

First off this post isn't meant to be offensive to anyone's beliefs or views, I'm definitely not a preacher, and I don't know much more than I've been taught in Sunday school, but I thought religion and the idea of role models tied in to each other and wanted to share my thoughts.      

I watched the new superman movie, Man of Steel, today and after finishing it I found myself thinking quite a bit about role models, who they are, why we choose them, and what purpose they serve.  My mind still on superman flying around and saving people as my family and I sat down in church, I found myself thinking about what someone or something not from earth would conclude after viewing a group of people such as my family and I in church, worshipping a "god" that some would argue isn't even there.  "Why do they do that?" the spectator would think.  Aside from the promises made from god or a god to the worshipper such as eternal life in heaven or being higher up the caste system when you reincarnate I realized all religions more or less preach the same thing, being a good person.  The main difference is how they tell you to go about doing it.  Then I started thinking even more, not just about Christianity, but Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and even Sikhism.  While all the worlds religions might be considerably different in how people worship, how they live their lives, and who they worship, religion is a way of uniting people and spreading a message (usually... and hopefully a positive one).  The word religion comes from its latin root religo/religare which means to bind.  How does this tie in with America's core values?  America is a place where everyone is guaranteed freedom, and it more or less remains true to this guarantee.  We all have the right to be a follower of whichever (if any) religion we want, but unlike America itself being a melting pot of cultures united in one country, religions separate people because of who they worship.  This separation is the cause of much violence in today's world, and a lot of violence in the past as well.  The world isn't black and white, so just because another group go about being good people in a different way doesn't mean we need to discriminate or think down upon.  Who knows if we will end up being poked by the devil's pitchfork in a fiery pit for all of eternity if we're bad during life, or if accidentally killing a bug by sitting on it will bring bad luck to your family?  We can all go about being good people however we want to, but we should make an effort not to continue with the violence and discrimination against others doing the same thing in a different manner.  Who knows?  Maybe the old lady you help across the street could be an angry, but mislead religious leader ready to wage war on America; who instead rethinks their day after an act of kindness from people such as yourselves!