An old quote comes to mind: Man created god(s); god(s) did not create man.

Where there are opportunities there are opportunists.

Shall we? I feel like I would need to see some actual data to verify that. Fear and ignorance have always existed, but so has love and compassion. We've had a lot of crazy ideas that we corrected as we grew more aware, so there has to be more to it than that.

As this article in the NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information) points out:
Religious belief and behavior are a hallmark of human life, with no accepted animal equivalent, and found in all cultures (1). The biological basis of religion, though, is fiercely debated in fields as diverse as evolutionary psychology, anthropology, genetics, and cosmology. Contemporary psychological theories consider religious belief and behavior as complex brain-based phenomena that may have co-emerged in our species with novel cognitive processes for social cognition, such as Theory of Mind (ToM), and successfully engaged fundamental cognitive mechanisms, such as memory

[ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

I never heard of the Baron but he is right.

sounds spot on