Religion, ideally should be a personal relationship with one's creator, or whichever divine being one chooses to worshp/embrace. Instituitionalied religions (like Catholicism) were devised to rule over large communities, make them obedient, and enable taxation to be carried out systematically. The rulers are given the mandate to rule over the people by God, through the church, and this gives the ruling authority some kind of legitimacy. The trouble with different religions is that they will compete with one another for the tax monies, this is why it is difficult for religions to co-exist (earlier). Today, in advanced countries, where state and religion are separated, the state collects taxes legally, and the church collects money through donations (some of which have been exposed as scams).
Cheers!
why do people making the religion a big deal, we only have the same God but different beliefs, why we just don't respect other religion right?