Religion as (Great) marketing

Blogging about religion is a terrible idea. A terrible idea. At best, no one will care. At worst, I'll be dealing with flames instead of reasonable replies. Before I go any further, here's the obvious part: I have no idea whether one religion is correct or even whether any of them are correct. Personally, I'm a strong believer in some sense, but those of many faiths would question my devotion. For the topics I'll consider, that doesn't matter. I have trouble believing that any--from congregants to religious leaders to atheists, from the faithful of Christianity to Islam to Judaism to Zoroastrianism--would argue with the assertion that one of the foundations of religion is to influence behavior. Even the Universal Life Church, a self-described "non-denominational" institution that offers ordainment to anyone over the web and is vehemently open-minded about behavior, has the tenet: "Do only that which is right." So here's my problem. "Influencing behavior" is the definition of marketing. And I admire great marketing. (OK, to be strictly accurate, I'd say "Influencing behavior" is the definition of outbound marketing. Inbound marketing is about creating the right product or service. I'm going to avoid this aspect because if you extend the metaphor, you get into decisions about the defining the right religion and, well, that would be even more foolish of me to discuss.) Anyway, I've been doing some wondering about religion as marketing. I mean no disrespect and, for example, I don't capitalize "marketing" because I don't mean it as a business department or a self-serving function. I mean it simply as a phrase to imply a core of religion: behavior influence. More on this to come...