It is both, depending on who you're talking to. Not all religious people have the same motivations. Some do derive a sense of purpose and direction from it, and, not realizing they could get it from any number of good sources, buy the line that they'd be rudderless without it. Or in the alternative, they just like what they know and what they feel works.

Some people have been conditioned to want to be told by authority figures what to do and think, and religion serves that purpose too ... some kinds of religion more than others. It isn't all uniformly authoritarian by any means. The more liberal precincts of Christianity are positively loosey-goosey.

Then there's the fact that religion can be manipulated by governments and various power-mongers and brokers. Some kinds of religion lend themselves better to this than do others.

It is a way to herd people and keep them scared so they can be manipulated.

I think that the religious impulse spontaneously bubbles out of people, and it lends the keenest of motivation to survive and live well.

I think that Some domineering individuals within many religious organizations subvert the religius impulse for their own ego gratification.

Those same types also infiltrate just about all organizations, not just religious ones.