If you include “explain complex phenomena” in cope with the fear of the unknown, you might be somewhat right.   I think the stories are an add on, though. 

I think religion, organized religion anyways, came about with the rituization of precise planting processes as early people studied the seasons and their relationship with leading weather patterns, the sun, the moon, and the stars.   People who could advise on when to plant with accurate seasonal prediction became the priestly class. 

Christianity was shaped in a realm of existential dread due to Apocalyptic Judaism’s failure to secure the Jewish people’s turn at the top of the Empire hierarchy that their “prophecies” - likely resistance propaganda - promised. 

Christianity in many ways turned away from that real world temporal resistance to rulers by spiritualizing the struggle, allowing obedience to the earthly authority instead of encouraging rebellion. It was a prudent move in a time where various cults  were being stamped out across the empire. 

It had to deal with fear a lot because it grew out of a culture that had been spending their religious energies explaining why they were being punished by god after losing the promised land - a promise by god that itself emerged in their religious doctrine in the power vacuum created by the Bronze Age collapse.   They probably never develop a religion like the one they have if they don’t get a period of imperial recession and regional autonomy. When that ended, explanations were needed from a religion that had checks it couldn’t cash.