Religion: History's very first panopticon.

[husserl49]

5. Disdain manipulates too.

I do not think it is proper to state that “religion is used to _____”. This sounds as if the idea of religion were deliberately concocted with an explicit goal in mind. The notion is an example of a "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy. The idea of religion began very early, at least going back to when groups of people employed an alphabet and wrote about prevailing customs. Early civilization in the Middle East, for example, developed ideas of "something or some force" beyond themselves that contributed more fully to an understanding of human standing and human orientation within the observable cosmos. Some of these beliefs abetted the social organization of those who ruled, those who owned and controlled property, those who maintained social order, and those who worked in order to build a surplus. Event A happened and promoted the proliferation of B. A then B; BUT A did NOT necessarily cause B. The Medieval Orders were similar – those who ruled, those who were God’s anointed, and those who worked to build a surplus. Modern capitalism has its well defined rank and file.

"Religion" certainly contains articles of faith and precepts by which we live. But in many ways religion as ideology functions like liberalism or critical theory or Neo Marxism. Disdain for or outright negation of religion is also an ideology that is quite capable of “manipulating and controlling" its true believers too.