Religions do not sell themselves as theory but as 'revealed truths'. They are nothing of the kind.
Some religions sell themselves as revealed truths.
Some religions don't.
I see you have not yet engaged the actual data and are still referring to what is obviously certain Western traditions as, broadly, "religion" while ignoring the actual diversity of religious thought.
As for turning my intellect to religion, I've done this time and again, taught classes on it, etc. I guess perhaps it's worth a thread somewhere. I always found it rather elementary, to be honest, and a lot less interesting than looking at say, art as a human behavior.
Religion is a social institution as much as any other social institution, with many of the same functions and the same interactions with individual human cognition, integrated with the rest of a society just as any aspect of culture is.
It isn't some unique phenomena, much as both the religious and the atheists would like to sometimes purport. It's just another aspect of being human, with all the same pitfalls, the same functions in maintaining social bonds and communicating information, the same glitches that accompany all social beliefs and practices. The power struggles, the stumbling over describing what is inexpressible in clumsy words, the group solidarity (and us vs. them thinking), the specialization, the titles, the symbols... it's human social behavior, folks. It's nothing that unique. It's just the same 'ole human stuff, but with a particular focus of inquiry.
Of particular note is that religious organization mirrors socio-political organization. As society becomes more differentiated and unequal, so too does religion. As people are alienated from the land, each other, and political power... so too are they alienated from the divine (however that is defined and understood). As people are governed more and more by an elite, their religion is governed more and more by an elite. The interconnectedness of religion and other aspects of culture is very clear when one actually studies the historical and cross-cultural data on it. Of more interest is the separation of science, magic, and religion (which were unified modes of inquiry in traditional societies).
If people are really interested, I could start a post and post some references and summarize some of the more complicated stuff. It's just work to dig them all out, so I don't want to bother unless people would actually read it and care.
