However, there is a name that resembles Luthor and is very famous. That is Luther, Martin Luther, founder of Protestantism. Is it even possible that Siegel and Shuster might have been obliquely referring to Martin Luther when they named Lex Luthor? I think it is
So do you think there was no religious content or do you think there was a statement of Martin Luther as a villain? Because I'd call that religious content (albeit disguised).
While I'm not saying it's not based on Martin Luther, I'd find it odd unless you can give me similar religious basis for other villains' names, since Luthor was not originally Superman's arch-foe (from my understanding it was Ultra-Humanite, but Luthor replaced him after an artist error drew him bald during his fourth appearance, I think) so I don't know why he'd be singled out for a symbolic name like that when others weren't.
And have you considered why Siegel and Shuster decided to name Superman's arch-enemy Lex Luthor? Isn't that a strange name? 'Lex' is Latin for 'word', so Lex Luthor can be thought of as 'the word of Luthor'. But then who is Luthor? And what kind of evil word(s) did this Luthor speak?
But he didn't get a first name until 1960 - 20 years after he was introduced, so the "word of" element doesn't really work there when considering what Luthor means (symbolically) to me, because I don't think the first name was conceived of when the character was created (though it was Siegel who wrote the issue that gave him his name in 1960). Really I think they named him that mostly for the alliteration.
And by 1960, Superman was definitely already in his mainstream, law-and-order, boyscout state that is recognizable today (though to a greater extreme really - it was the Silver Age and the storylines could be frightening)
