I'm not sure it's possible to have interesting discussions about 'the benefits of religion to society and the individual' without taking a position, actually... surely if you think that the benefits are psychological you're assuming it false, and if you think the benefits are about a right relationship with God you're assuming it true?

Similarly the separation of church and state: if your view of the truth or otherwise of religion doesn't inform that, then you're clearly doing it all wrong. (It's possible to be a atheist and a disestablishmentarian, a Christian and a disestablishmentarianism, a Christian and an antidisestablishmentarian or an atheist into antidisestablishmentarianism, but your reasoning will be different in each case, and neither side of the religious debate will be able to talk to each other -- someone who thinks that the church should be disestablished because God intended it to be on the side of the powerless, not the powerful, can't really have much of a meaningful conversation with someone who thinks that it's all just a story but it's a useful one form a social cohesion point of view).

Having said that, whether you think that God was at work in the history of religion might inform your view, but I don't think it's as foundational to it as in the other two cases, so I'll let you have that one.

S.