Hi Peter. I thought that an explanation of religion as the expression of a society's main aspirations and concerns was a favourable opinion about  the place of religion in the structure of a viable society.The 'trappings' of religion are the myths and rituals and indeed the religous art  that make what would otherwise be a rather dull statement of  values appeal to the expressive and non rational part of human nature; and are therefore not to be despised either. 

What matters with regard to the future of our species is not the religious paraphernalia though, even taking the myths and rituals  to include beliefs in the reality of supernatural states of being, but the pragmatic truths of the ethics thus expressed.