What is the most likely originating use for religion?

One has to go back into history and do some major research, and that I have done and so have many other persons . If you will notice how religion and royalty are always together; i.e., anytime a person is crowned king, queen or whatever the title, there is always mostly the catholic church involved in the ceremony, supposedly representing god. Royalty and religions need each other. First, when the majority of the people on the earth or perhaps 98% of them were ignorant, those who had just a little knowledge decided to take over the leadership. They knew that they could not just stand up and tell the masses that "I am taking over". No, because they would likely have been killed, so they came up with the idea that they would prepare a presentation for teaching the masses about a god (naturally that god was the person who would take over, but the masses could not understand this) and that god had decided through (and here they introduced the brother or some relative of the person who would take over as being the high priest and explained that god asked that his word be taught to all the people by the priests.

The high priest came on the scene and told the masses that Joe Blow had been selected by the now invented god concept and all persons must do as he tells them or they will suffer the wrath of that god.

So religion was born as one of the methods of keeping the ignorant in line and believing in that god. This was all for maintaining control and later the royals learned that they could also milk the masses out of their meager funds by telling them that they have to give to the house of the lord and the leaders or now so-called royals could collect much money for themselves. Today religion is now separate from the royal system but still work hand in hand; The church likes to continue to have the masses think that it has power to connect with that god concept and the royals wish to continue to have the leaders or top persons in religions to crown them by god or whatever they might claim.

To explain things that were not understood or fears,,,

Same as today...

Most of those gods, like the ones for the Sun, lightning and thunder, have been discarded as we began to understand (scientific applications). Unknown and fearful things like life and death are still used by some to justify a god in their lives...

The excuse that because we don't know something means that there must be a god to explain it, makes no more sense today than it did back then...

The promotion and fear of such gods has been used by the churches and clergy for centuries for controlling the masses and extorting riches and power......

IMHO

There are several reasons. One of them would be to control the population, and put a certain group of people in charge. For centuries, the "civilized" world was ruled almost entirely by the heads of religion. Another reason would be comfort, and excuse. Alot of people want to be "rewarded" for doing good things, and are afraid of there being nothing to look forward to after death.

It developed as a way to control fear and uncertainty in primitive societies, by invoking magic to explain things that were mystery.

It then morphed into controlling the masses, period.

"spreading the word" is just a euphemism for control.

For some it was the search for a higher power to have faith in and believe. For others it was to be apart of a religion to help regiment their lives. For others it was a combination of both.

Religion began with Cain and Abel. One beloved God, and had a relationship with him. The other did not believe God, done things his own way, and ultimately was separated from God more than he already was. Cain had a city of descendants that worshipped God in an idolotrous fashion how they saw fit. Same today, religion is man made attempts to please God, but lead people astray. What people need is a relationship with God, and that can only be found through Jesus Christ.

The first purpose of religion was probably to explain the Cosmos.

Control over people.

As a device to lighten the darkness of the unknown.

Unifying cause. Then when it was noticed how easy it was to unify people to a cause people understood how to take advantage of that and control people with it.