Also, trying to find a coherent explanation of the nature of the Force across the whole Star Wars franchise or the trilogies is pointless, since in Star Wars the Force is treated as a psychological activity (believing in yourself) while in Empire the Force is more comic-like. You may argue SW Vader did not really Force-choke Admiral Motti, he merely suggested to Motti the idea of being telephatically choked, and that SW Obi-Wan didn’t really use mind-control, but there’s no way you can say TESB Luke convinced a few stones to ignore physics. The prequels weren’t the first Star Wars movies to make massive retcons and changes.
From the beginning, the Force has been a religion: a belief system, a spiritual understanding of how the universe works - not a psychological activity. It was expounded upon in ESB, but did not contradict itself.
The Force is not a religion, it is a power, a mystical energy binding the universe, whatever. The Jedi Order, on the other hand, is a religion built on the Force. In Star Wars, Lucas was rather vague about the Force: did Obi-Wan really speak to Luke from the afterlife, or did Luke imagine it? Did Luke really use the Force to block a few blasts with his dead father’s lightsaber, or he merely believed in himself? Star Wars was not really a sci-fi movie in the way Empire was (of course, the OT is not hard sci-fi, but you know what I mean). It is in Empire when you first see telekinesis, Force conversations between two living characters and Force Jumps.