It's generally hard to be in someone else's shoes, especially since people with different cultural backgrounds, upbringing, genetic makeup and possibly very different life experiences may develop different mechanisms for coping (or failing to cope, as the case may be) with adversity.

Of course religion is a crutch (what ELSE could it possibly be?). A lot of the things we take for granted are basically that, crutches - and that is not necessarilly a bad thing; crutches are just tools that may help us survive or live better lives (even science, society itself, the whole of civilisation, or knowledge, self confidence, good behavioural habits, etc, are types of "crutches" that we build for ourselves).

I guess the difference here is that one "medicine" may actually work for real, whereas another may simply act as a placebo...

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"Elegance has the disadvantage that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it."

-- Dijkstra