It's not meaningful to generalize about all religion based on the church in medieval Europe. The potential behavior of a powerful theocracy, yes, but not religion in general.
Incidentally, your "fire insurance" argument is generally referred to as "Pascal's Wager" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager), in case you (or another reader) is interested in reading further along those lines.
Comments
It's not meaningful to generalize about all religion based on the church in medieval Europe. The potential behavior of a powerful theocracy, yes, but not religion in general.
Incidentally, your "fire insurance" argument is generally referred to as "Pascal's Wager" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager), in case you (or another reader) is interested in reading further along those lines.