I'm sad they're taking out religion too, and Schafer's comment on it is completely backwards. Religion created more innovation for Civ's diplomacy system than anything else in CivIV. I had (and still have) so much fun playing the Diplomacy mini-game in Civilization and when Firaxis added religion to the mix, it made things that much more awesome. I feel like they're tearing down the strong walls they built into the series last time. Why would they do that? It's especially saddening because it means that Firaxis feels like religion "doesn't make the cut" as a standard feature of Civilization like, say, War, Culture or Economics do.
The only reason I could see them leaving out religion is if they don't feel like they could do it justice by the game's release date. Look at BTS. It was an AMAZING X-pack that pretty much single-handedly created Civ IV's espionage system. A lot of people complained that vanilla's espionage was weak and look what we got. So maybe we'll get a BTS for Civ V.
Fortunately, I can buy the game anyway because everything else just sounds so great! And, I'm sure someone will rise up to the task of modding Religion back into the game if Firaxis doesn't.
Edit: When I said "Schafer's comment was backward" I meant that, as I read it, it seemed like the statement was the opposite of what is true. I hope it didn't come across as a criticism about his person, etc. Just the comment was confounding.