All it is is a battle of ideas. And as the intellectual capacities of mankind increased; an increase in consciousness, religion had to gradually adjust its perspective as science or the investigations of people debunked the previous explanations of religion that God did this and that. This has been the process for the last 500 odd years or so. This led essentially to Darwin's ideas that dealt a significant blow to the God brigade, and as we know have been fighting back ever since.
well I'm not sure about a battle of ideas, nor that the intellectual capacities of mankind have increased,
I am even less sure about an increase in consciousness. Science may be against Godsliteralrighthandism but American Biochemist, Darwinian and theist Martinez Hewlett has pointed out that fundamentalism of that type is a relatively recent phenomenon.
So I think your version is an urban myth.
Organised religion as Nearly suggests does itself in by siding with oppressive forces and party politics such as the Spanish Falange and in this country the practice of landlords insisting on worker tenants attending church as part of a package of subservience including King country, party and elders and betters. But as we now know church attendance was always a dispensible feature for the powerful who now insist on internet connectivity with and of a worker for every waking moment.