Are religions a form of conspiracy theory?

...Or vice-versa? Religions have always been a convenient tool for calming people in providing them with answers to questions they had about their existence, their reason for being, life and death or a series of inexplicable events and phenomena. 

They have also been very instrumental in controlling and manipulating them for a vast variety of reasons. Their success has depended a lot on the intelligence, education, common sense, fearfulness or gullibility of their target audience. 

When one compares religious faith to belief in conspiracy theories, there isn’t much difference. Both creeds cannot prove their respective validity, and must use hear-say, irrational or unproven theories to advance and state their claims. 

Anything based on commonsense, on science or proven facts is systematically rejected by proponents of both sides (religious and conspiracy advocates) that are all basing - not proving - their “truth” on isolated and group testimonies, ancient, reported events or the sheer numbers of believers they have been able to enlist and enrage to echo their claims. 

The crowd effect if you will. This to me is enough to conclude that conspiracy theories and religions are cut of the same cloth.