They're pretty different though. Religion makes the specific claim that there is a deity of some sort that has interacted with the world in specific ways, varying based on the specific religion, while generally also claiming stuff like the afterlife. It's a set of beliefs about the universe that just so happens to almost always attempt to dictate what its believers' values ought to be. I don't see any basis for equating religion and individual values other than that they're vague and subjective (on that note, has anyone read The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris?).
Bolded caught my eye; Sam Harris's Moral Landscape is, I think for the most part, simply poor moral philosophy. As far as I know it's just another failed leap over Hume's Is-Ought distinction. I'm unaware if he even addressed moral ontology in that book, given that he had to have dealt with metaethics at some point. I'm curious to know how other people view it as well.
On the topic of God and belief, I think it's both a rational and useful belief to have. In terms of practicality, the grounding it serves for our moral values both historically and currently is second to none; moral ontology seems to be difficult without belief in the existence of something that could give rise to the strange things that are "moral", and God happens to fill a very good explanatory role. God also functions as a concrete explanation for the meaning of life, in some way or the other. In a world ultimately so determined and beyond our control, a belief in God is a useful postulate that makes the world make sense to us.
Rationally speaking, theologians and philosophers still wrestle with the big question to this day. Some interesting reasons to think that God exists come from our nature as contingent beings that are dependent, and the implications of this dependence suggest that there is some independent existence that explains or causes our existence. Other more ambitious arguments come from the simple idea of God as a perfect being: a perfect being has all perfections, necessary existence is a perfection, and thus a perfect being must exist. This famous ontological argument presented by philosophers such as Anselm, Descartes, Baumgartner, and more recently Plantinga purport that the existence of God is something that can be proved by reason alone. Quite unconvincing for most of us, but a few here and there might take it seriously.
I think belief in God and religion in general is dying out in Western societies, but the baggage that we carry because of those past beliefs is not. I do think it's kind of unfortunate that people who are religious and who hold some type of moral opinion are usually dismissed on the basis of their opinion being religiously motivated though, or at least that's something I've experienced. You'd think you'd be on equal ground, or at least in an agree-to-disagree kind of bind, but sometimes it doesn't seem that way.
In the end, at least one group's belief will be vindicated, and that's something, right?
