The crux of all religions. The only comparatevely harmless religions are the ones who don't claim that gods demand absolute obedience, but their orders are spoken through a chosen few; otherwise they're just a form of primitive government.
Naturalistic religions, so called "paganism", also worshipped living beings or natural phenomena like a particularly big tree, a mountain, a forest, the Sun, etc. Some of these didn't demand obedience nor spoke through a ruling elite. Bonus points for worshipping things that could be verified as real.