Communism could be designed to work for the betterment of the whole society. Unfortunately, that is not what it has been designed for in those nations that have recently adopted it. In those cases, it was instead designed to make a small group of party bosses fabulously wealthy and powerful at the expense of everyone else. That’s why Communist Countries in recent history have needed barbed-wire fences and machine gun nests to keep the workers in their “worker’s paradise.”
As to being anti-religious, that has nothing to do with the basic form of economics and everything to do with who is instituting it. One of the earliest uses of communism as an economic model is doccumented in the Christian Bible’s Book of Acts as follows:
Acts 4:32—And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.
33—And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.
34—Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,
35—And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.
The Bible also cautions that certain early Christians, convinced of the immediacy of Christ’s return, decided not to work but to spend all their time in prayer and let others take care of feeding them. Paul warned believers that if such an able-bodied man would not work, let him also not eat.
So if you are going to use a communist system, you have to find ways around human laziness. One plan might be to meet people’s basic needs, but no more than that, and provide them the fruit of their labors to enjoy things above and beyond the basics if and only if they earn them.
As we have recently seen, Casino Capitalism is not without its vulnerabilities to evil human nature either. Nor, if we look back at the 19the and early 20th century, was the capitalism of the robber barons.