Religion, theist or polytheist, is not just a belief in god or gods, that is merely deism. Religion is in fact three beliefs in one (Christian joke.). Firstly there is a god, secondly that god has something important to say to people, and thirdly that god was not clever enough to tell everyone, but could only manage to tell a few, carefully chosen people, who were then entitled to ask for money, power, or sex before they could pass it on to everyone else. Does that sound like a scam to you ?
Yep. Tell the people they have a problem that only religion can fix, then make that religion so difficult to understand that it takes a lifetime of going to church and tithing to try to figure out how that religion is supposed to help. Pretty good racket!