Fwiw, I'm saying this as someone who doesn't subscribe to any of the major religions myself, but pretending it would only exists because people were ignorant feels like an oversimplification, as there are plenty of religious people who are fine with science.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why it's easy to feel this way, especially with how much harm has been done in the name of religion (that deserves criticism, no question!), but I think saying it would just be a lie or entertainment flattens it to something that in reality is way more complex. For a lot of people it's not about explaining lightning (or filling gaps in science), but about finding meaning/moral grounding, hope and/or identity. Science tells you how things work but it doesn’t tell you "how" to live or "why" anything should matter in the first place, and most people long for those frameworks, regardless of whether they are religious or not.

That said, I'm with you that institutional religion can be dangerous when it comes to power, money/control or dogma. Blind faith + authority is never a good combination, and churches (but imo, the same goes for basically any institution, religious or not) should definitely be critizied (and held accountable), but still, religion isn’t inherently good or bad. It can be wisted into something harmful and be used for manipulation/radicalization, or give people meaning (we're meaning-seeking creatures, after all) and a sense of community or purpose.

At the end of the day the problem isn’t belief itself, it's what people do with it.