Faith and religion are not the same thing. Lots of people have faith in something but aren't religious. One can have faith in himself; one can have faith in the basic goodness of humanity; One can have faith in lots of things and not be religious about it. Also, I think faith is essential to a person's wellbeing and his/her ability to accomplish anything.
On the subject of religion, personally I think that it's appearance in human societies is derived from two things: One is the desire to explain the unknown, and the other is a need to establish universal rules and laws that the whole society can follow so that it can be kept together. Now, explaining the unknown is, I feel, no longer a part of religion in modern societies. And of course laws and rules are already provided by about every society in the world. All this I feel makes religion kind of pointless in the world today. Except of course, that the word of God brings with it a certain moral authority, that governments simply don't have.
Finally, it's perfectly possible to argue that the only reason religion has been a part of every civilization so far, is a reflection of humanity's primitivity as a species.