Was religion created to put fear in the minds of humans?

You could make an argumemt that it was made to control society and it worked well. Dont steal, dont kill, dont lie, love your neighbor, help your community, dont get fat, dont be lazy, get married, have kids, dont be gay, dont have sex outside of marriage. These are good values that help society run well.

It was made to explain natural events like rain that people didn't understand yet

I think people invented gods because of fear, they were afraid of not knowing how the world works and of having no control over the elements and their fate. But with the invention of gods, suddenly they could influence their outcomes with prayer and sacrifices. And then naturally, people realised there was an opportunity there to gain power, by claiming to have an exclusive line of communication with the gods, and therefore influence over people's fates. Often though it was only people that already had power that were able to do this, so kings became known as being appointed by the gods themselves (I mean, why else would the gods allow them to become kings?).

I'd say the vast majority of religious leaders nowadays do believe what they preach, they're not just lying to people purely to gain money. Of course, they'll guilt people into donating money to them as well, so they can live a comfortable life. But they're good at convincing themselves that there's nothing wrong with that, or at just pushing away the question of whether that's moral altogether. I don't see how anyone falls for the televangelists though, they are pure conmen and they must know it.

Depends on the time, religion, and place. I generally think religion was meant to do the exact opposite: quell the fear in the minds of humans. The more strict the rules of the religion are, though, the more it feels like just controlling them.

However, that isn't necessarily a bad thing since that's what regular rules and laws are for, too. There tends to be some kind of disconnect where we think of a religious law as bad and a legal law as good even if they're covering the same thing. We generally don't want people to kill each other, for instance.

It just gets weird when we get to stuff like "don't eat bacon" or "having ten wives is okay, but not the other way around." You just have to remember that the people who enforce and, more importantly, interpret religions are human, and everything goes through a "human error/desire" filter.

To focus more on the OP's delusions, though, no, religion was not created to put money in the pockets of politicians, and people are not "waking up." The idea of religion goes back further than a couple of days ago, and there are more religions than you think there are.

I personally think that preached principles and values are often at odds with desires.

Couple that with the fact that a society's definition of what is good and bad is dynamic, it keeps changing with time.

Religion is a constant reference point. Yes, the experience gained from trial and error can be invaluable. But just as this experience, following a religious teaching can be challenging and rewarding at the same time.

In my opinion, the most challenging part about religion is the conflict between someone's desire and religiously-instilled values. But to be guided by desires could be too dangerous. I think there should always be a struggle between principles and desires, regardless of being religious or not.

Religion uses a mixture of a promise for reward and instilling fear from punishment to influence its adherents to follow the teachings. From a purely religious perspective, I think the fear isn't simply there to control the minds of the people.

Unfortunately it is correct that religion is often used by politicians as an authority to control the public. You argue back, you could risk being accused of heresy.

My personal response to this is to not turn against religion, but turn against the common narrative and try to find a counter argument by an influential religious figure. There are always these voices, but politicians and governments choose the voices that give them legitimacy. Basically, objective discourse in the scope of a single religion is a dying art.

Fear was already there. We felt fear long before some human used it to control the masses. Masses didn't exist back in the day. But as we met more people, we feared how different they were so we tried to make us all the same. It teaches you to fear what is different, so don't be different.

What dabade said plus to try and answer the basic questions of life: Where did we come from? Why are we here?