What would happen if our society followed the Old Testament? (IR)

For my Independent Reading, I read "A Handmaid's Tale."
It was incredibly disturbing.
The premise of the book was that the United States of America had been divided into different warring religious sects and the one that held the most power, the Republic of Gilead, was a branch of Christianity that took the Old Testament and New Testament at it's word. Many don't interpret the bible literally nowadays because many aspects of it are a bit out of date. The main outdated aspect that is exemplified in "A Handmaid's Tale" is the Bible's views toward women. Since I have read only catches of the Bible I decided that I needed to do some biblical research after reading the book just to make sure that everything the futuristic society made into law regarding woman was actually from the bible. Scarily enough, it was. Here is what I found from my research.
Biblical Quotes and how they connect to "A Handmaid's Tale":
 1.) To the woman he said, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bring forth children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."-Genesis
 In the Republic of Gilead, women are allowed no anesthetics in childbirth so that they can fully feel the pain of birth. They are also most certainly "ruled over" by their husbands.
2.)“When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, Give me children or I shall die! Then she said, Here is my maid Bilhah; go in to her, that she may bear upon my knees, and even I may have children through her.’”
This is where the Republic of Gilead got the inspiration for handmaids. Handmaids are basically mistresses sent out by the government to create children for families when the wife cannot conceive.  They take the scripture so seriously that in order to "follow scripture" the handmaids from Gilead must actually conceive the baby while resting on the wife's knees. No kidding.
3.)“I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.” (1 Timothy 2:12)
In the Republic of Gilead, women are not allowed to learn, or to read. Even the Bible must be read by a man.

I don't know what else to say about this book other than it made me seriously frightened of all religion. It also made me think of "Imagine" by Paul McCartney. Do you think we'd be better off with no religion? I'm not sure. Religion can do a great deal of good, but when misinterpreted  or given too much power it can do a great deal of evil.