If you assume that religion isn't just a club for ideologues, what you get is more of a research-program.

There's a technique, there's a mystery, you do the technique to address the mystery.

Techniques : meditation, fasting, hallucinogens.

Mysteries : God, Tao, Ultimate Reality.

Given the lack of technique in most of what we call religion these days, I think what we're looking at is a degenerate form of something that was pretty cool once upon a time. What we've got is basically fanfic.