There are all sorts of interesting sociological differences between actively religious people and the nonreligious, usually to the advantage of theists. They live longer, report greater happiness, are healthier by most measures of health, and I think have some protection against mental disease. Most studies investigating these advantages find they have nothing to do with the content of the religion and everything to do with the religion providing easy access to the religious community, a friendly and supportive social group to which other believers have an automatic "in".

This is not to devalue the importance of the material - most of us would not fit into a religious community no matter how hard we tried

FWIW, I just spent the last two years in a church in hopes of achieving such benefits. A few weeks ago I classified the experiment as a failure -- I was more connected to others and generally happier in the one month I spent with the NYC rationalist community than at any time with the religious group, with which I had spent more time.