The native americans would say otherwise.  You think we are ahead because we have fancy toys called technology.  Yet they would say they arr ahead, because they have no need for external technology to be happy or to live.

The first world is truly the third world.  All technology is just a mediocre replication of what we can already do with our mind.

Remove religion, fine, mainstream religions are full of dogma, half truths and many falsities.  They are power structures.

Remove spiritually and you remove love.  A world without love is what you call hell.