I think it slightly more accurate to say religion is often content or even find things easier if its members are 'mindless sheep' than that it particularly encourages that situation. But that is true of a huge number of organizations: whatever they say about empowerment most big businesses prefer that only a small percentage of their staff think for themselves. If someone does want to think religious tenets through more deeply, though, my personal experience is that most clergy (since Vatican II anyway) have encouraged debate and discussion rather than tried to suppress it. I can think of one priest I had who didn't (who was already in his 70s when VII came), but all the rest did.