Is religion necessary?

I`ve seen many people on Y!A saying that religion is the cause of wars and all kind of attrocities during the history of mankind. But when you have so many question from believers like: " do atheists have morlas since they don`t belive in x or y holy book?", it makes you wonder if people would actually behave without a boogie man that is religion. I think religion is very necessary in our society since there are people who can`t understand why atheists don`t kill, steal, etc. I mean these people need a boogie man, which is religion to keep them in line and have a functional society. What do you think?