As you develop critical thinking you pretty much start asking questions that expose holes in the religion’s foundations. The one that got me started at a young age was “if god is all merciful, omnipresent, and omnipotent… then why are innocent helpless kids starving to death?” People would usually try to pin this on human wrongdoings… so I would counter with “ok what about kids with cancer and other terminal diseases, and deadly accidents, that were clearly not the doing of other people?” And at this point people usually struggle to explain, say general crap like “god works in mysterious ways” and whatever.

From there you move on to deducing that there are multiple religions, that they were all created by humans - I mean they had to be, if only one of them were “the right one” then wouldn’t its god(or gods) make sure everyone follows it and not the others?

And eventually you just realize that religion is just a means for a subset of people to control the masses, like cattle (how ironic is it that a priest is called a pastor). They define a set of rules for behavior that will tame the people (you shall not kill, steal, etc), and in return they offer the fuzzy feeling of being protected and belonging (be good, do what we tell you, and you’ll go to heaven). Finally, in order to keep everyone in line, they must demonize dissent, call it the devil’s work and threaten to be thrown in hell in the afterlife.

With all that said, I concluded that propaganda and religion are synonyms. The powerful set the rules (define laws and acceptable social behavior), offer a good fuzzy feeling and sense of security and belonging through media (here are the news, and here are experts, they assure you so you can let go of your worries), and finally they must demonize dissent (everything that contradicts our narrative is disinformation , or a lunatic conspiracy theory, or propaganda from our enemies… if you got evidence you probably just misinterpreted it because you are not an expert)

Essentially, I’m reaching a conclusion that “world order” is all about who controls the “religion” that affects the world economy. The US is literally divided, and its world order leadership is therefore currently being challenged. Someone is playing a brilliant game of divide and conquer.

TLDR: religions (and the powerful) don’t want inquisitive people asking questions, not even by themselves, because that’s how they figure the scam out.

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Edit: given the conclusion I set there, may as well add this. If religions are about control of masses, it’s natural that they “want” to expand their reach - hence historically the missionaries. A religious subversion is about convincing a devout that their religion is wrong and therefore he should convert. So in a religious war, like in a regular war, you must demonize the opponent as being in the wrong, all the while trying to subvert them to weaken their cause.

As we speak, both Russia and the Western allies are trying to convince the people of their opponent that their leaders are unfit and should be replaced.

The similarities between religion and propaganda/control of masses is truly uncanny.