Religion in Transformers
From what I’ve seen and read from Transformers, I deduce that Optimus Prime is in fact very religious, and that The Matrix is a powerful artifact, stemming from religion. Since he holds The Matrix, it only makes sense that he would be. I’ve seen evidence of this sprinkled throughout the entire fandom. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen Beast Wars, RiD/Car Robots, Energon, or ROTF, and have only read a handful of comics, not all coinciding, so this will be lacking anything might’ve mentioned in there. Here are some points to my theory.
First off is a little information on the character, Primus. He has been known throughout all the continuities that he’s in as the one who had created the first 13 Transformers. I can’t remember where I read this, but I remember reading somewhere that Primus’s spark resides inside The Matrix of Leadership, which also goes by the name The Creation Matrix. From the episode of Transformers: Cybertron, also known as Galaxy Force in Japan, on the episode titled in English; Cybertron, the Autobots inserted 3 of the 4 Cyber Planet Keys that they had found into a device. These keys were supposed to bring about Primus, and it did, but only after Optimus pulled The Matrix out of his chest, which in turn shot a beam of light on the device.
I’ve also read that all the sparks are actually a piece of Primus’s spark. When a Transformer dies, they ‘become one with The Matrix’ (Optimus Prime, TF: 86; The Death of Optimus Prime). In Armada, when Optimus is brought back to life after he had died in that continuity, too, his minicon, Sparkplug, holds The Matrix in the air. A bright light temporarily blinds all present, and when it clears Optimus is standing there. These incidents also point to Primus’s spark residing in The Matrix.
I noticed that The Matrix is very picky about who it lets use it. When Optimus died in the 86 movie, he handed The Matrix to Ultra Magnus and told him to lead. Ultra Magnus tried using it and it wouldn’t budge. But it did work for Hot Rod, who in turn became Rodimus Prime, and he was able to ‘light their darkest hour’, in turn destroying Unicron. When Optimus Prime came back to life, he was also able to use it against the Hate Plague.
The Matrix also acts as a conduit between the living and those that have passed. In the G1 episode Five Faces of Darkness, part 4, Rodimus fatally injures himself to enter The Matrix. While in there, the past Primes talk to him, telling him the origin of the Transformers race, according to that continuity. Optimus also enters it without inflicting physical harm on him. In The Return of Optimus Prime, he enters it to find out a cure for The Hate Plague. In the episode Rebirth part 1, he didn’t enter it, but it communicated with him. Ultra Magnus walks in and finds Optimus kneeling on the floor, clutching his head. After making sure he’s alright, Optimus tells him that he’s had these ‘overwhelming feelings’ that something big is gonna happen. Maybe he was being shown the future.
Following the theory that he is religious, I don’t think many, if any, of his soldiers are. It would also seem that he implies a bit of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ motto with his soldiers. What I mean by that is, he doesn’t let his religion dictate how he leads the army. Nor does he expect his soldiers to follow the same beliefs and practices he uses. He lets them live their lives according to the dictates of their own conscious.
So that’s why I think Optimus Prime is religious. Now I also think they didn’t go more into depth to confirm this because they wanted to keep religion officially out of the fandom. But as obscure as it is, the evidence is there.