It's not.
OTOH it's nonsense. The social engineering came late. First it was a primitive attempt to explain the unknown and give meaning to the meaningless.
I agree and have a follow up opinion. It's not a bad thing. Religion was created to share and make people believe that certain things are bad because those things used to hurt or kill people. It's social engineering to essentially try to make people better at living longer and happier lives. Sadly, a lot of religion broke out into more and more bad actors that used it for greed and personal gain.