Reddit mentions of Psychology and Religion (The Terry Lectures Series)

What you're talking about is more or less in line with a psychoanalytic / Jungian interpretation. There's a lot of history and some disagreement^1, but generally the idea is that religion was instituted to codify morality into an easy-to-digest way (ie, making up stories that teach us how to behave morally) and to give a general model of human behavior and interaction, a sort of primitive social science.

I'm coming mostly from Carl Jung (Text 1 / Text 2 / Wiki), Jacques Lacan (Text / Wiki), Joseph Campbell (Text / Wiki), and Erich Fromm (Text / Wiki), but these anthologies give a decent scope of study: Ways of Being Religious and Religion, Society and Psychoanalysis.

There's also an entire sub-genre of what amount to self-help books based on mythology, interpreting myths to teach you how to be a better person: Myths to Live By, Iron John.


^1 One of the big disagreements between Freud and Jung was the role of religion in the mind of a subject. Freud believed it was a fantasy we use to bolster our own sense of importance and impart some sense of order onto the world that isn't there. Jung believed, while that may be true of fundamentalists or the neurotic/pathological, generally speaking it was a positive thing, that it created or strengthened social bonds, that it taught us things about ourselves and humanity.

I'm a pretty well-confirmed athiest at this point. I tend to view the current manifestations of religion as following in a long tradition of mythmaking by human cultures.

With that in mind, you might look into some psychology in addition to your religious research. I'm a writer, which is how I came by Jung and Campbell and Booker -- but I think the idea of underlying patterns of thought that guide our own mythmaking is of broader use than simply helping me understand storytelling better.

I've read the following, and suggest you do as well!

Jung

The Basic Writings of CG Jung

Man and His Symbols

The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Psychology and Religion

Campbell

The Hero With A Thousand Faces

The Masks of God (Vols. 1 - 3)

Myths to Live By

Booker

The Seven Basic Plots

There are a lot more, but those are the ones I'd start with. As an undergrad, I majored in English and Rhetoric, and minored in both Religion and Poetry -- this cultural storytelling stuff is important to me.

As a library science graduate student, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that you can get all of these books from your local library -- and can enlist the aid of the reference desk in finding more material for your research. Believe me, there's nothing a reference worker likes more than an interesting topic -- i.e. something that doesn't involve directing people to the bathroom, or helping people find books on filing their taxes. We're trained to help with real research! Use us!