What are the differences between a religion and a conspiracy theory? is the question I was just asking myself.
Maybe the spiritual element is what conspiracy theories (or, actually, any kinds of theories) lack?

There's nothing wrong with conspiracy theories or religions. The combination of the two is just a shitty one.

From my understanding:
It sounds like trying to compare Mathematics vs Arithmetics.

-- From Oxford:

What is a Conspiracy?
- A secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.

What is a theory?
- A supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained.

From the above definitions we can say "a Conspiracy theory is a system of ideas intended to explain a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful".

On the other hand, religion entails "various theories and hypothesis" including conspiracies, acknowledgement or recognition, historical facts, etc.

So the bottom line is you cannot do a one-to-one comparison because "Religion" covers a vast area of theories.

No difference in the basic thing:
People telling each other stories to gain something. Stories can be true, or false - does not matter.
The difference is in how successfull the story is, and if anyone got tax exemptions.

Imagine using wikipedia as a source of knowledge.

In my opinion,

A religion deals with these secrets of life and or the universe while a conspiracy theory deals with the secrets of people and organizations.

@electrineer I didn't imply that there is anything wrong with either, did I? 🤔

@nonox and I didn't imply you did either, did I?