What isn’t religion’s purpose? Here is a partial list:

• Religion’s purpose is not to give us true beliefs.
• Religion’s purpose is not to get us to act some particular way.
• Religion’s purpose is not to make us feel some particular way.
• Religion’s purpose is not to comfort us.
• Religion’s purpose is not to help us form a personal relationship with God.
• Religions’s purpose is not to put us in contact or communion with higher being or beings.
• Religions’s purpose is not to bring us to a different state of consciousness.
• Religion’s purpose is not to inspire us to serve our needy neighbors.
• Religion’s purpose is not to provide us a supportive community.
• Religion’s purpose is not to give us a sense of meaning.

These things are all means to another end, another purpose.