I think your description of what "religion brings to the table" is a little...lopsided. Fundamentalism brings those things. But not all religion is fundamentalist. Maybe most religion isn't.
These are not unique to fundamentalism. Indeed, dividing people into in-groups and out-groups and reinforcing existing social norms and structures are two of the evolutionary functions of religion in general; moreover, looking at the history of religion, one cannot say, while maintaining a straight face, that intolerance and divisiveness are unique to particular types of extremist religions- they can be found in virtually all eras, and most religions (including, surprisingly, Buddhism).
And while I agree that religious ethics tend not to work if one does not accept some of the premises for the religion, I presume that those who choose to follow a religion choose to accept some of the premises, for whatever reasons resonate with them.
Then the truth of those premises is significant.
Your argument is valid if one were proposing that only religious ethics exist, and/or that people be compelled to accept them, or one version of them or another.
Well, not really. I'm saying that, if religion offers no substantive literally true discourse about the world, and its proper contribution lies in
ethics, then it would seem to be superfluous, since one can get the ethics without any of the other baggage religion brings to the table. Moreover, secular ethics is probably to be preferred anyways, since it makes moral quality a known quantity rather than being contingent upon the will of an unfathomable being.
It kind of seems like you want there to be just one way that everyone thinks.
Well, no, not really. But I am interested in truth, so the old cop-out of "to each their own, whatever floats your boat, blah blah blah" isn't really relevant here; people have every right to believe whatever they want. I, however, am interested in the truth of these various views; in which case, the truth-claims which form necessary, distinctive cores of various religions are extremely salient.
Pluralism seems much more vibrant and rich, at least IMO.
That's great as a social policy, but if we're engaging in scholarly endeavors, its just irrelevant; when pluralism includes views which make mutually exclusive truth-claims, we know that they cannot all be true, even if it is obviously fair and just to allow people to hold whatever views they wish.
Sure, religions propose certain premises about how the world works. But those premises are based in revelatory traditions that, being spiritual and revelatory, are inherently objectively unprovable.
This is non-sequitur; changes or events in the world have effects. Regardless of how knowledge of a particular event is acquired (such as by revelation), if the event actually occurred, this will entail worldly evidence. Thus, doctrinal claims regarding changes in the world can be evaluated in virtue of empirical evidence just as any other changes in the world can. Someone becoming informed of a change or event in the world via divine revelation would not mitigate the simple fact that these changes or events will, if factual, leave behind some evidence. For instance, if God covered the Earth with a flood, killing off virtually life on the planet, whether I found out about this through a divinely-inspired vision, an email, or seeing it first-hand, this event will entail empirical evidence.
What is provable is rational, but the spiritual and revelatory are inherently arational. This is why exclusivist, fundamentalist, aggressively proselytizing theologies are inherently poor theologies.
Theologies which take religious truth-claims seriously, on some level at least, are most definitely the majority of theologies, nor do they coincide with "exclusivist, fundamentalist, aggressively proselytizing" theologies. Even the most moderate theologians, e.g. Hicks, take some aspects of doctrine seriously (for Christian theologians, at the very least the existence of God, and likely the divinity of Christ). Does that mean they claim that such truth-claims are
provable (as in, can be shown to a certainty)? No, this is a false dilemma; there are many things which are rationally argued for, and held to be truth-apt, which are not strictly provable. Religion has most certainly been considered one of these.
Of course there are kinds of evidence within religion, but they are not ultimately objective: evidence of scripture or prophets, which ultimately means taking the prophet or the authors of scripture at their word for certain things, or of personal anecdotes.
I'm not sure you're really thinking about what you're saying; think of the sorts of evidence NT scholars concern themselves with, concerning the historicity of various people, places and events in scripture. Clearly religious truth-claims can admit of "objective" evidence in exactly the same fashion that ordinary claims can. Maybe some of them cannot (such as "God exists"), but that should probably raise some red flags in itself.