A young man brought up in difficult conditions seeks to change the society he sees around him. He is supposedly a revolutionary who rebels against the injustice being practiced in society around that time. His acts earn him a dedicated group of followers. Soon, the powers that be are threatened by his growing influence and supposedly torture & kill him brutally. After his death, a lot of people begin to associate themselves with him to gain people's trust. They see how mesmerized the people are by the dead man, and soon make up stories about his divinity. Casting him as a Messiah, they prepare texts making them out as words of their Messiah straight from God. In them, they insert commands & rituals to fit their own personal needs. This group grows & the powers that be now seek to reconcile with the agitated people. Seeing that the majority has now turned over, they switch their allegiance from the old religion to this new one. And after handsomely rewarding the "leaders" of this new religion, they create the official version of the "word of God", taking lessons from the leaders, and tailoring it to their own selfish needs. The leaders & their successors in turn are granted unquestionable moral authority for centuries to come. Together the powers that be, & their moral "advisors" enjoy a continuing reign where they feed off the ignorance & subservience of their people. This template is followed by others, and twisted & concocted even more. These other Messiahs don't even need to be good men. He can be a charlatan or a murderer, yet as long as he commands influence over a group and says the magic words "I heard the voice of God", he becomes a Messiah & a new religion is born. Also notice how its always a he never a she. The words in their "Holy books" are used to command them to fight & kill for their respective religions. The powers that be sit back & plan out new regions to conquer with their brain-washed armies. Some of the religions are then forced to give up their violent ways. So they try silent brain-washing to influence people to change the laws of the land, so they can continue to rule.
And there you have it, a template for creating a religion, that continues to be used to this day.
If religions stopped fighting over who is right, and think over where they have all gone wrong, the world would be a much better place
