Religion harmful to society?

A new study published in the U.S.-based Journal of Religion and Society states:

"Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly skeptical world.

"In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so."

My simple refute to the claim that religion harms American society is that a minority of Americans regularly attend religious services. But even that is not a good indicator of their devoutness! Remember that BTK guy in Kansas? He was a deacon in his church. Even Jesus said there would be many who claimed to be His followers, but in fact never had a relationship with Him. In Isaiah 29:13, God complains about this type of people:

"These people come near to me with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
Their worship of me
is made up only of rules taught by men."
(Read more of Isaiah here to see what God really desires instead of vain religious exercises.)

But I do agree with the researchers that a religion-dominated society is not necessarily desirable, not only for society, but for the religious themselves. Currently, I'm reading church history and haven't been impressed by the changes in the Christian church since Emperor Constantine made Christianity a state-sanctioned religion. Perhaps Christians shouldn't focus on headcount, but rather "heartcount."