Sorry, Min... but I think you're missing the point. Yes, there were corrupt priests who lived off the toil of the farming peasants. But it was not they who invented religion - if by 'religion' you mean the worship or honouring of gods or a God. It may have been the priesthood who eventually wrote it down. But religious thought and ritual existed in oral and dramatic format for thousands of years before that.... and this is widely accepted - it's not just me with one of my off the wall opinions.
You didn't accept my example of Gobustan, which shows that Palaeo man conducted the horse sacrifice, even though you'd think you'd have to ask who or what they were sacrificing to if they didn't believe in gods or God?
So how about Gobekli Tepe? This Neolithic structure was built solely for religious purposes by hunter gatherers, who would only meet there to carry out their rituals, most probably at the solstices and equinoxes. There were no living quarters either within the ritual complex, or nearby.
Then there's Catal Hoyuk. Both James Mellart and Ian Hodder who have, over time, uncovered Catal Hoyuk, came to the conclusion that the pastoralists who built and settled down there did so solely in order to create a permanent cult building for their already existing rituals.
When you examine the mental linkage betweeen surplus, leisure and religion more closely, imo, it's logic is faulty. It comes from associating hunter gathering with 'lack' which, again on closer examination, proves not to be the case. But even if it did prove to be the case, we also know that man is more likely to pray to gods/God when he is trouble, or in need, and not when everything is hunky dory.
On top of that, specialization was not exclusive to farming communities. Some people in HG tribes specialized in being warriors. Others, like the shaman, specialized in religion.
How do you think those farming priests* got the peasants to obey them in the first place? By trading on, and corrupting, their already existing beliefs about the gods, the cosmos and their place within it....imo.
*In the Vedic society, the highest caste was the Brahmin priestly caste. Kings, or kshatriyas, came second in the pecking order, and had to obey the priests. The merchant class came third and then the sudras, the workers, came last.
