Is religion impeding human progress?

do we still need primitive and supernatural beliefs in the 21st century? long before Christianity people needed something to understand the world around them; so what better way than to Create something to explain to the mes how nature worked. At the time people weren't as educated as we are thousands of years later. Is it really necessary to let religion get in the way of social and human evolution. Now that man has the ability to control his own destination and evolve beyond sapiens into the singularity where man becomes part machine part biological do we really need superstitious beliefs to understand the world and the universe