There are religions and religions, and you confuse institution with religion. The Catholic Church is not the teachings of Jesus. And Christianity is the essence of our culture. Without Christianity, the West has no meaning whatsoever.

Saying that the west needs Christianity to have meaning is absurd. It diminishes all the energy, time and love put into life by non Christians. Nobody needs a book to behave properly if they're raised properly. It's another way to split humanity into "us vs them". Very un-Christian, if you ask me.

You're right. It's not just a book. It's the Church Christ created when he told Pope Peter: "And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church". This Church is the "one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church" (325AD). This very Church canonized the Bible we know today around 400AD Its not some random book, it is the verified writings by the institution the Living God created by himself for his disciples to carry on. You've been fed distillations of the truth so removed from its breadth that it seems trivial. It's not. It goes way deeper than you realize. When exploring more you will have to come to the realization that you're going against thousands of years of human history, logic, and spiritual understanding. This historically short blip of material "enlightenment" is not it.

Culture and history is older than Christianity. Restricting yourself to unquestionably follow that one thing is to disregard everything else before and since. It's mad.

Christ existed before His birth, He's beyond time as He is God. Human history didn't start with His birth it goes way back to Abraham, Moses all the way to Adam and Eve. You're not arguing with a foolish Protestant bible thumper. It goes way deeper than you know. We do not have the luxury that our parents did of ignoring human history and the spiritual due to material comfort. It's time for us to bring it back. Get on board.