"God doesn't need religion and neither do I."

Well put, Don T! You've stated a profound truth there.

"But religions need a God, and each one manufactures its own sacred one and only true God, and defends it with religious fervour and often violence."

True in some cases, Don. Not in all cases, though. There have been some religions that didn't posit a God at all (such as Buddhism and Taoism, to mention two), but did assume a more impersonal divine order of some kind. There have been some religions that were/are quite tolerant of other (foreign) ideas about God...such as Hinduism, the Baha'i faith, Buddhism, the North American Indian traditional religion, and many more liberal people and churches among modern Christans, Jews, etc.

"A God is a prerequisite for faith."

Again...not necessarily. One can believe in some sort of divine order or way of things without necessarily ascribing it to a deity. A Deity is an individualized representation of "someone" who is supposedly in command of that divine order. Taoism speaks of "the Way". Buddhism speaks of enlightenment. Hinduism speaks of Nirvana (while using many symbolic gods and goddesses to illustrate various archetypes of existence). North American Indian traditional religion speaks of "the Great Mystery" (or "the Great Spirit")...which is not a manlike being, but something much larger and less definable than an individualized being.

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I think this is what is required to have a religious sense of life: a belief in the Sacred, and a belief that there is a much higher purpose to life than mere competition and survival, and that that purpose underpins and supports all of life and gives life its true meaning. You don't have to belong to any organized religion to believe in that....but you might belong to one...and still believe in it.