Do you see any benefits to religious faith?

[Neo-Scholastic]

Except in my examples they actually were motivated by religion, whereas you are merely speculating that it could have been otherwise. Perhaps you could provide examples of prominent abolishionists that were prominent atheists.

Are you suggesting that Dr King, for example, could not or would not have been motivated by anything other than religious means; and not that he was able to use religion as a motivator to others? Was he a good man only because of his faith, or could he have been good regardless, simply by being a good man? Or is there some other avenue?

Actual examples would help. But that is the point, not that people cannot have non-religious motives to do good, but that religious motivations lead the charge and dominate. As such they show a difference of degree, if not of kind.

Doctors were around for ages but the first hospitals and large scale organizations devoted to healing were religious. There where schools built around single teachers forever, but the original universities were founded on religious principles. Missionaries brought widespread relief to distant lands before secular not-for-profits even existed. Religions institutionalize and spread virtues. They lead the way.