To the extent that people are moving away from religion it is because they becoming more knowledgable and enlightened. To imply loss of religion is a cause of societal moral degeneracy and in turn to peak oil is quite a stretch (or rather, two stretches).

Rather, the failure of individuals, states and the world collectively to respond to peak oil is can be ascribed to the following factors:

Socialogical / Psychological
1. Denial / disbelief (this cannot be happening really, can it?)
2. The soporific comforting effects of consumerism and affluence (note that this is independent of religious views or lack thereof)
3. An expectation that science and technology can solve all future problems (or perhaps for the religious amongst us, plain old blind faith)

Corporate /political
1. Business management motivated to quarterly or annual results when choosing between alternatives to allocate capital.
2. Strategic pricing of oil by the OPEC and the oil industry over many years to dissuade investment in alternatives
3. The US being fixated with oil supply side over demand side, perhaps because half the outgoing regime are oil industry men.

Financial / economic
1. Artificially low cost of capital and artificially high returns driven by unchecked M3 growth
2. Fear of (real) renewables which have a lot lower lifetime customer values. By definition, a renewable anything has a lower cost to run and own than something you pay by the litre/mile to keep going. After all, the basis of capitalism is consumption. Maybe capitalism should have been called consumptionism.
3. Market failure in the sense that the many negative externalities have never been fully factored into oil consumption.
4. Disbelief or hostility by mainstream economists towards a world in which compound growth is no longer a given. So much of our modern economic and ultimately societal underpinnings come back to this one simple fact, itself underpinned by ready and cheap energy and oil. Reorientation towards a new zero growth / low growth paradigm in economics awaits a modern day Keynes. I know he or she is out there somewhere.

I am sure there are a heap more factors, but that is what comes to mind (whereas lack of religion does not).

There was a great article in SciAm last year(?) on what it would take to rid the US of foreign energy dependence. Honestly, I think it is going to take something of that magnitude to get out of this. However, like climate change, people won't believe something unless they can see it. Therefore, I am fairly certain at least some level of impact has to be felt before the massive investment required to reorient to a renewable society could be justified to the populace. Whether that is inherently defeating, because any impact signals we've left it all too late, remains to be seen. Either way, there will be winners and losers.

Personally, I think the world economy and quality of life is going to go through a period of sustained decline before things get better. Eventually, the world (economically, socially, politically) will realign to the new realities of steady state and sustainability. After all, is there really an alternative?

How far we shall decline and how steeply before reaching that place, I leave for experts on this site to judge.