Hah. If you think that religion functions or is supposed to function as a mechanism of assuaging fear and trembling then you really don't understand it.
I can play this game too: You fear accountability and are offended conceptually by eternity. See how easy it is?
[disclaimer: I know perfectly well that atheism doesn't, in fact, normally work this way.]
Not really, no. I would be all for upgrading the human body so we could live forever 
Again, I didn't actually think you thought that way (though you seem to genuinely think that anybody with my beliefs thinks the way you're describing, which makes me sad). I was just attempting to demonstrate the silliness of what you were doing.
I, meanwhile, don't want to counterfeit eternity or call down manmade eschatons. 'Upgrade' also implies that something is 'defective' or in need of 'improvement', which is assigning questionable temporal teleology to evolution. Bodily death is a feature, not a bug, since eternity can't be arrived at without experience of both living and dying states.
We could pretend the belief of eternal life and a supernatural creator assigning order to the universe and protecting/watching over you is not the basis of why people have created religion but what's the point?
Religion is a way for people to get some peace of mind by transferring their uncertainty and doubt of some fundamental questions about life over to the supreme authority of everything. Are these beliefs true? It doesn't matter. The emotional need comes first, justifications second. Even if those justifications are comforting lies. What else would drive these thoughts but fear?
As does your rhetoric, even though most of your ideology is fine. The sentence 'religion and conservatism thrive on false equivalency' is false equivalency.
Really it's quite obvious that religion and conservatism thrive on false equivalency. The way empirical evidence and objective experiments are shunned is testament to that.
Fundamentalists hate our secular school system because it "indoctrinates" their children by not allowing superstition (the earth is 6,000 years old, etc) to be taught equivalently along side science and conservatives need no introduction. Taxes now are higher than they've ever been. Tax cuts increase revenue. The recession was caused by excessive government spending and eliminating the deficit will end it. Gay marriage will harm society. The list goes on.
These beliefs systems are both similar in that they defend their beliefs by deferring to the idea that their emotionally charged beliefs are equivalent to facts. Reality and "experts" cannot have supremacy or alter their strongly held beliefs. "That's just your opinion. You believe what you believe and I believe what I believe. We're both right." No foundation necessary.
