To legion
Religion mainly has been used to control, but don't forget that for example in ancient Egypt the "clergymen"(I don't know the english word for them) where also the astronomers, the doctors, the mathimaticians, etc..So in some cases (extremely few) religion has been used to explain the various phenomena around us.
In the middle ages, in most cases only the elite knew how to read and write. When you don't have food on your table every day, reading and writing is the last thing you want to know.
A question, when a doctor visits you don't you give money to him/her? The words of the shamans meant nothing, but they knew how to treat people in case of some illnesses,not of course because of anything magic but because of experience (this plant does good in that illness and so on). Some of those "magic" plants are used also in modern medicine. Just out of recognition of his/her work shouldn't be given something ?(in many of the tribes that had a shaman they didn't had money, food and clothes where the means of paying someone)
Places of worship nowadays are based on money and how they can get more. If you mean it in that sense, then yes they are trying to have somekind of power (eternal punishment, eternal life, paradise) on the minds of people, but not in order to do not have any rebellions but only to do not lose the money.
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