Religion a major role!?

Religion was actually a major role in the foundation of a lot of societies.  I personally would have never thought that religion would be the foundation to many ancient societies, because how were the people even able to come across the ideas of all these religions?  I know that human societies went through the phase of Jesus Christ and all but I would have never thought that his teachings and ideas would have gotten spread out so far.  To also believe that people would base the foundation of their societies on just beliefs is kind of interesting because you are not even using facts.  For example western Europe was raised on christian beliefs and started majority of their societies on that source of knowledge.  Even the Roman empire was founded on Catholic beliefs, and they people can tell mainly by the art and architecture presented to us by them through buildings left behind today.  The people of Roman are still very well indeed into their beliefs of the Catholic ways.  The beliefs that people put into these religions are very powerful because they put so much faith and care into these beliefs that, to go against them would be more than just going against one person, its the entire area that all share the same beliefs.