To return, briefly, to Religion in Humankind the game: At first glance you have much less control over Religion than in Civ VI: no building Holy Sites full of enhancing structures, no launching carpets of Missionaries to convert the Heathen, or Apostles and Gurus to carry Religious Metaphorical (or maybe Real) Fire and Sword against the Unbelievers. On the other hand, even without OP Science bonuses, there are some very subtle but Real advantages to religion.
First, Religious Tenets. They 'unlock' some time after you have started a religion, and come in 'Tiers' from 1 to 4. Like Civ VI, they are First Come, First Pick and each Tenet can only be picked by one Religion in the game - come late, and your choices may be limited. Basically, they allow you (again, like the Civ VI religious picks) to specify what benefits you are going to get from your Religion. For example, right at the start, in Tier 1 Tenets, you can choose to get extra Money, Industry, Food, or Science from each Holy Site you build.
Now, Holy Sites are expensive: they cost much more than any single Quarter (District) and so several cities can contribute to building one (which, however, ties up all the production from several cities for X turns, which is not always your best move).
But, for all that production sink, each Holy Site gives a base yield of +20 Faith and +20 Stability. The Faith, of course, provides Religious Pressure to convert neighboring and then further distant Regions to your religion, including regions nominally held by another Faction. This can in turn benefit you directly, because some later Tenets give you bonuses for each Territory under your religion's Influence, so you are basically getting resources from your opponent's people and territory. I don't know about you, but that always gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling. . .
The Stability is almost as important, because Stability is a major Limitation on what you can do throughout the game. A city with low Stability can get to the point where you cannot build anything in it except something that increases Stability, and low enough Stability also spawns Rebel Armies, which if you did not bother to build a wall around that city, can ruin your whole day by taking that city away from you in a single Game-Changing Turn. So +20 Stability is not incidental: it's the equivalent of 2 more Quarters you can build without penalty (with a few exceptions, each Quarter you build costs -10 Stability) and early in the game, each Quarter is a substantial gain in your overall Resource accumulation per turn.
I have never played a 'religious game' in Civ VI, and I brought that attitude into Humankind. I've learned my lesson. 2 - 3 Holy Sites is the equivalent of 6 - 9 more Quarters, which, early in the game, is a Fame Star and if you happen to be playing a Builder Faction, could be several hundred Fame Points. Never forget: Fame Points are the ONLY Victory Condition in this game. You can have Trade Routes far and wide or conquer three-quarters of the cities and regions on the map, but if some Faction off in the corner has been quietly gathering Influence (Fame Stars and more Fame Points for Aesthete Factions), building Quarters and gaining Science they can still beat you without ever fighting a battle.
Not easily, I grant you: Conquest potentially gets you Fame from winning battles, killing Units, amassing more Regions and Quarters in captured cities, and if an enemy has to pay up in a Victory Settlement, major lumps of Money. On the other hand, attempted Conquest that doesn't succeed can tie you up in a drawn-out war that ends when neither of you have enough War Support to win and you are, basically, forced (by your own little digital peoples) to make a 'peace of exhaustion'. Until you are familiar with it, War in Humankind is a lot trickier than in Civ: you can find yourself playing your own nasty little game of "US in Vietnam" or "Soviet Union in Afghanistan" in the Classical Age - on the other hand, waging a Successful War is a lot more satisfying an accomplishment once you know how.