What role do religions play in matters of manipulation and coercion?
Most anti-religious individuals oppose them because they are supposedly always based on deception of the common people by individuals who hold authority in that belief system (priests and such). The presence of unquestioning dogma forces individuals to change their perceptions of reality in order to fit the established belief system, or is that an unrealistic generalization propagated by the anti-religious? Thomas Aquinas was not against the use of reason to reach conclusions, but in his views reason should always be submitted to faith, and if a rational conclusion conflicted with a revelation of faith, it should be discarded.
On the other hand there are religions and religious beliefs that do not preach a submission to earthly authority, or that do not have a strict dogma. Could these paradigms have any positive effect on people, especially when it came to protecting them from manipulation? Could belief from non-rational sources provide the individual with a stable and permanent point of reference that helps them more than it hinders them?
I think these are questions worth questioning, and I hope this is the right place to ask them.