Was Religion Created to Control the Masses?

This is a very prevalent idea nowadays.  What is wrong with it is that we are missing the point here regarding religion.

Unfortunately in all or most societies the elite will look for ways to control the masses. Check out Prof Noam chomsky's writings (eg manufacturing consent ) . So in times where people are religious then guess what the elite will use to try to control the people?  They will use fake 'priests' to try to deceive people so that true religion is hijacked and replaced by fake religion whose aim is to control the masses to serve the interests of the elite.

Today the new fake religion is called 'democracy' and is used to send soldiers to wars for the interests of the elite (but they tell us they are spreading democracy) eg compare iraq war,  Afghanistan etc.  It's all about what is termed 'national interests' which means the interests of the elite in reality I think but they want to tell us it is for our interest so that we do the job.

So the remaining question is what is True religion then?

Basically it is about thinking about why we are here and who or what created us. Why It created us ? Has It made communication with us etc. This is how true religion starts in my view.  But when you have fake priests it gets subverted. In the same way democracy has become subverted.  So today we now have fake democracy.