I'm Not Sure Where I'm Going With This

I have the strangest feeling that religion is the main driving force behind most of the philosophers we have read/talked about so far. Each and every one of them, save maybe one or two---maybe---has brought up religion in what ever topic it is they are discussing. What does religion have to do with how moral someone is or can be? How does religion prove or disprove the idea of free will? What does religion have to do with being patriotic? I don't believe that a higher power or being can make you do something you don't want to or control if you do something you want to. If anything the constraints of society or your own personal judgement are what stop or prompt you.  You don't have to have morals to believe a religion, just like you don't have to believe any particular religion to have morals; the two don't go hand in hand. In some cases I don't even see where religion fits into the questions they ask. As with the current topic existentialism. In this theory each person is essentially responsible for what they make of them self, so where does or would religion fit in here? I don't really think it does.