If you have sky, check out the religion channels.
One of them was selling prayers, yes, you sent in money to them and they had a team who would pray for you in return.
They also had a cool offer on too, if you buy a hankerchief blessed by them you'd get a free bible.
And if you don't think the major religions have killed to protect themselves you need to pay more attention in history class.
Also, the Pope doesn't make insane amounts of money for running Catholicism (for lack of a better term), and then not have to pay taxes for anything.
The pope has his own independent state ruled by him, own currency and all the thrills.
EDIT: I'm not disagreeing with you about Scientology, its founder was a science-fiction author for christs sake! Just saying that every religion has skeletons in its closet, some are better at hiding it than others..