The only difference is that religion is more organized. Without organization, the people remain weak and malleable, thus controlled by unseen and un-blamed people (media) rather than people with known names and known claims.
It is all the same game, merely a different manipulation strategy.
Man is the great manipulator using money, media, and medicine.
We did not invent God(s). We invented a god concept that evolved according to our spiritual understanding. Bob was absolutely right on this point. By way of Greek and oriental influences, the Hebrew God became the Christian God. So what is the latest concept of God? Is it still locked into the understanding of ancient Hebrews and 1st century Christians?
Either we did not invent gods or we invented false gods (idols).
The first “gods” for a child are the parents of the child. Later the child learns what “gods” mean or/and what a “god” means. So that learning of the concept “god/gods” by children is a part of the ontogenetic development. I think that the learning of the concept “god/gods” by erstwhile adults, thus a part of the phylogenetic development, is similar to the ontogenetic development. Ancestors had and have been gods for a very, very, very long time.
Modernity fights the origin. So theologically said, modernity means inventing false gods (idols). But in other times and always for children gods are not an invention but a part of the development of language-based thought from the concrete to the abstract.
No Gnostic Christian believes the myth we created to put against the Christian myth. We do not hold any supernatural beliefs. Those are only good for those who refuse to think.
Science is exactly where most mainstream religions are.
With their many theories to precede the Big Bang, science has created their own scientific god of the Gaps and he sits with the religious gods of the gaps.
They didn’t stop inventing them, they merely started calling them something else. Unfortunately with the average intellect as it is, that is all it takes to propose that progress is forming a new world without gods.
Good. Then you should understand where and why we are creating gods for ourselves. Gods as defined as the best rules and laws to live by and so far, secular gods, laws and rules that is, have all been created by people who also put supernatural gods aside.
Indeed, our intellect is growing and intelligent people recognize that supernatural gods are just fiction. God has no place in the minds of intelligent thinkers.
That is why the religious fear intelligent reasoning and logic.
Martin Luther
“Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.”
“Reason is a whore, the greatest enemy that faith has.”
Keep your faith my friend but remember that faith is only good for those who do not want the truth.