The use of Religion to control, manipulate, and gain power

[Angrboda]

I think perhaps there may be three stages at issue. First, how did religion originate. Second, how did it evolve to what it has become. Third, why does it remain.

I think originally religion is simply attempts to understand what goes on inside ourselves, our minds, and outside of us. These are powerful questions, and at the beginning they were only informed by the contents of the basement of our minds. Things like magic, disembodied spirits, and so forth are all miscues of signals from parts of the mind, providing illusory answers.

Powerful questions yield powerful answers. Power will naturally gravitate to those with the most popular answers, and corruption ensues. Manipulation and social processes I think are just layered on top of the inherent power of these themes in our lives.

Why does it remain? Two reasons. Religions tend to be conservative stabilizing influences. Unchanging doctrine inspires more trust than changing, unstable climes. But the most important reason for the endurance of religion is the family. Our core values are transmitted uncritically from generation to generation through the family. We're built that way, because before civilization and nations, the family was who you depended upon for the bulk of your learning. Evolution made the transmission from parent to child very robust, and it remains so to this day; it's the primary way religion is transmitted by far.