There does seem to be a religious scam in the talk of talents as gifts, as you describe it. And I can see how scams might work in overextending the idea of religions, to make theism seem inevitable.

But the fact is that theism isn't the same as religion, and some tribal aspects of religion are natural and practically universal. We can avoid the scams, then, by being clear about how we're using these words.

You don't think the Russians worshipped the state in the Soviet Union? Why not, because they were cynical about their leaders? Plenty of Christians were cynical about the Catholic Church, which led to the Protestant Revolution, but that hardly means there was no Christian religion in the medieval period.

What do you mean by "worship"? The question is about what we hold as having ultimate value or as sacred. Rituals crop up in our dealing with the sacred. That's why there are so many rituals in the US in how politicians interact with the sacred monuments and government buildings. It's a civil, nontheistic religion. It's why many Americans practically worship their founding fathers and the Constitution. They have secular faith in democracy and in capitalism.

Certainly, Russians didn't trust in communism when their society was collapsing all around them. And shortly after WWII, they may have feared rather than trusted in Stalin. But what Russians did hold as sacred were workers' rights, based on Marxist and Leninist reasoning. That's what brought down the House of Romanov in the middle of a world war. Theirs was a scientistic religion. They trusted that history would unfold rationally as Marx foretold.