> The west as a whole owes its way of life in some shape or form to religion
You haven't gone far back enough in history to make that claim. Civilisation was destroyed by Christianity, and for a 1000 years, nothing happened, no progress except for a few individuals who dared question religion.
> A government of the people must reflect the beliefs of the people.
I have heard this my whole life. I have been struggling to understand this folly my whole life, because to me eyes, it is fundamentally a misunderstanding of correlation and causation. Generally ethical peoples focused on bettering themselves produced the democracies that led to this mad sentence. Now decades/century later people look at it at face value and fail to choose to better themselves, they only see their ego and call themselves the best, they say that's all there will ever be. It's false, it's a lie, and unchecked will lead to another dark age.
We must choose, I choose to look at myself and see the good without forgetting the bad, I choose to improve upon myself, be inspired by others, sieve cultures, emulate the good, and learn for the terrible so as to never repeat it.
Would I to fail to do this, I fear I will never understand existence, and would be a crime against the universe. Claiming to know what it is, is a lie, nobody knows. What we must do is figure it out. No religion will ever achieve that.