If religious scriptures were taken in as books of ancient folklore that have metaphors with moal guidelines (as was probably its purpose) then they wouldn't be harmful. It's modern (middle ages-present) religious/political leaders that have manipulated them into a tool to leverage wealth/power from the regular people. All of that caused the result of what we see today; basically the end of a bad game of broken telephone with each religious figure (or even a king who wanted to get rid of his wife) adding something for their own personal gain throughout the years which has culminated into the garbage people believe at present.
When you ask basically anyone today why they believe it, they get defensive/aggressive about it, (then try to recruit you), because they really dont even know the answer themselves. If you dig and get at the answer youll find that basically it was hammered into their heads as a child with fear used as the base of the religion to create a permanent psychological imprint in their heads for the sole purpose being that their parent's parents did it to them and so on and so forth.
Basically in a tldr; modern religious institutions (specifically Catholicism/Christianity) were and are still standing as the greatest marketing companies to date. (Making their religion hereditary, spread by fear, gives people a sense of belonging/purpose, targeted demographic = children /generally confused morons) Other religions were marketed as basically, "if you're not with us youre a stupid ******* infidel and youre not invited to our virgin orgy in space later" (surprisingly blunt but equally as effective)
As for the scientific evidence part, youre right about them being functioning opposites, as damning scientific evidence will never be found, and the stories will never be disproven because its comparable to spend billions of dollars trying to disprove Aesop's fables or the Illiad (which in themselves aren't religions for the sole reason that ancient greeks weren't retarded like the Europeans in the dark ages). This creates the ridiculous science vs religion loop that we're all stuck in today.
Feel free to use as your thesis etc.