MOnica, you're in a very select group of authors and artists from generations ago to the present day who've written and spoken variations on your theme!
J.B. Priestley in 'Summer Day's Dream' wrote 'Man is a god-worshipping creature, and if he doesn't choose to worship a mysterious power of goodness and love, then he'll find something else - & something much worse - to adore.'
I think you're absolutely right, as well as many others who've commented. Fads of all sorts, from all sources, are becoming the new religion. I find it shrill, bossy, & usually half-baked (though perhaps the last is handy if one's fasting).
Lots of the points that have been made are connected, I think.
An age drowning in excess & media brainwashing. The lightning speed at which so many of society's underpinnings have vanished & keep vanishing: moral boundaries, values, traditions, religion ... almost everything that gives people a sense of stability and community suddenly (on the whole) isn't there. It's happened dangerously quickly, in historical terms.
No wonder people feel the need for new props. A bit dicey when the props haven't been tested by time & are largely composed of ways to make people feel bad about themselves so they'll spend money!
There are scientific aspects such as wanting to be part of a group for safety/survival, the weaker sensing that others are stronger & thus being willing to be led, etc. Personally I think that what seems to be a very deep-rooted sense of ceremony in mankind points to something religious in us. But that's just me; I don't have a problem with other thoughts.
What I have a problem with are the seven-league bossyboots who seem to want to pound everyone into believing what they believe while refusing to even entertain the notion that they might be inflexible, intolerant, and tyrannical little gits.
'Live and let live' was such a good idea ...!
Some monstrous concept of 'usefulness in society' - dystopian, Orwellian, all sorts of -ians - is 'frittin the guts out of me' as my Battersea cousins used to say. I may be a few fa-la's short of a madrigal, but it seems dangerously intertwined with all that's been discussed here.
I'm so glad you brought this up, MO, and that everyone shared such interesting ideas. Made me realize I should plug into inter-net land more often (and do something other than watch Adam Ant videos and Basil Brush on youtube when I do!)