What is the purpose of religion?

At the present time, the primary alternative to religion is science

In school science class you learned that nothing that you see or touch is real
 Everything is composed of atoms, which is just energy in motion
 You are a life-form living is a sea of energy

Science cannot explain why we all see the same illusion around us
 or why it seems real to us when it isn’t
 or what energy is

In College science class you learned that ‘time’ is a substance in the same way energy is a substance
 Time can be stretched, contracted and bent, and has different qualities in different places

Science cannot, at present, control time in any useful way

As human science advances it becomes closer to religion
 The holographic principle of String Theory suggests that what we all experience every day in 3 dimensions may just be information on a surface located at the farthest reaches of your Cosmos

Christians believe that God the Father is a being who exists outside of matter, energy, space and time, in eternity
 and that he expanded himself to create God the Son who is everything that exists, and moves in personality within The Creation
 and that God the Father breathed through God the Son and created The Holy Ghostwhich was used to from The Creation into the way we see it today

True science has no view on any of that
 These things cannot be tested with human instruments so, as far as science is concerned, these concepts cannot be proven one way or the other
 Of course, scientists, being humans, have a natural inclination to form strong opinions and impose those opinions on others as if they were facts

One of the great desires of scientists is to create Time Travel
 Humanity is moving in that direction and many consider it inevitable (only a matter of time)
 However if it turns out that The Holy Ghost is, in fact TIME – both physically and in personification
 science will be presented with a problem
 It would mean that Science would need to combine with Religion in order to make Time Travel happen

Time Travel, looked at from a scientific point of view, presents many terrors
 Looked at from a religious point of view it has no terrors at all
 If TIME is found to have personality, it will certainly be the Holy Ghost
 If the Holy Ghost is true, then God the Father is true
 If God the Father exists outside of TIME, then he created your past, present and future simultaneously

If to him, past, present and future have already happened, what does he do all day (if there was one)
 The answer is that he works on, perfects, or plays with, his creation
 How? By making continual changes
 In short, your past, present and future are continually being changed and you know nothing about it
 which is not a million miles from the basic idea of String Theory (though not its perceived mechanics)
 In any event, it makes the fears about Time Travel groundless
 which may well mean that it is already happening

If that is so, then your genetic descendants of the future come back regularly, to help you correct those parts of your life that impact on them in unfortunate ways
Yes, if Time Travel happens in the future, then the conduct of family members in your blood line is of enormous importance.
Why not conduct some experiments?
 When you work to bring your family together, do other unconnected areas of your life ‘go right’
 Are you rewarded?

Your question is :-
 ”What is the purpose of religion? - maybe we can find some good alternatives for it”
 In as much as the main religions treat family life as a sacred duty
 and all the alternatives ignore that issue completely
 then your idea of going with an alternative will not be helpful to your family, and that will impact on future generations
 In short, you will be a betrayer of your own bloodline. How low on the scale is that?