I think that the people about whom you're talking tend to use fundamentalist religion as means to enforce existing power structures from which they benefit; there's a reason that modern American conservatism is so inextricably tied to the evangelical churches, and why Southern Baptism was once used to justify the capture, sale, forced labor, and breeding of human beings with different skin colors.

I guess what I'm saying is that your point is not mutually exclusive with the comment to which you're replying, and that extreme religious values can have multiple "purposes," explicit or implicit.