Is Religion a useful tool for trade, commerce and Empire building?

Christianity was brought to the British Isles by the Romans, as the latest must have fashion accesory religion, after 43 A.D. Hundreds of years later Emperor Constantine made it more wide spread. He saw it's potential to control the unruly mes. On the eve of a battle, he dreamt of a burning cross, with the words, "in this sign we conquer". In Ireland the Celtic Church was already established. It was closest to the original Jewish Sect from where Christianity sprang from, or was hi-jacked by the fashionably conscious relgion adopting Roman upper cles. The same way Madonna and Brittany and Christina etc have adopted Kabbalah today. "Look at me, I'm different and special", a simple status symbol. The Celtic Church was quashed later by the bullyish tactics of the Roman Church. Whitby Synod. �The original Druidic or Wiccan religion was buried beneath a Romanised version of a Jewish Sect. Scratch away at the surface and you can see the Wiccan underneath, Mistletoe and Holly at Christmas? Easter Bunny, Easter Eggs? Pagan fertity symbols. Roman Popery spread throughout Europe. Finally reaching the Viking North. It was a handy method of control, trade and empire building, the same as it was 150 years ago for the European colonialists in India and Africa, or the Spanish/ Portuguese in their far off colonies, South America, Goa, Phillipines, Sri Lanka. Convert or die! If Big Cheif Walla Walla converts, he can �get better access to guns and whiskey. His people follow suite, through fear or through fashion.