Maybe, but it seems to have been around as long as us and it's universal acceptance, even in the most isolated human gathering surely is a tad more meaningful than some universal psycosis.
Its differing forms means no more than reflecting culture, capacity, social development, etc.
Your examples could be just as well described as stages in the evolution of religion, just as every school of thought has evolved from primative understandings.
Science is not bound to its practices of 2000 years ago and religion should be offered the same grace, sadly the followers of religion confuse superstition, dogma and literalism for faith and in this modern scientific world all that does is pull their pants down for everyone to see.
