Why is religion awful in your opinion? If you're trying to claim that many people committed awful acts in the name of religion, than I agree with you. But religion in itself being awful? I completely disagree.

>Materialism and naturalism becoming popular is a good thing because, as far as we're concerned, only the material and the natural world exists, and the belief in anything higher than that is false and the perpetuation of such beliefs would be a detriment on people's perception of reality

Where did you get the impression/notion that only the material and natural world exists? Before the creation of the universe, space-time and matter did not exist. Whatever caused them and thus the universe to exist has to be outside of the natural universe, because it cannot be made up of the same thing it created. The creation of the cosmos in itself is super-natural event, considering the laws of physics and space/time/matter did not always exist, they came into being.

Materialism also fails in many ways, namely in that it cannot explain and account for the phenomenon of consciousness/qualia. The eliminative materialist position is there's nothing in a conscious experience that is not equivalent to the physical processes producing it. Our very own sense and experiences are immaterial.

Your own idea that only the material world exists stems directly form your own immaterial thoughts. What I am saying is, in order to even have the idea that all that there is is the material, you have to use your immaterial mind to think/conjure that thought and claim.

Even Sam Harris, the fedora neuroscientist actually argues against materialism as an explanation for consciousness and says qualia is irreducible.