Religion is brilliant.

[Confused Ape]

When Friedrich Nietzsche stated that God is dead, this is exactly what he was talking about. God was supposed to be useful as a method of controling our more unacceptable behaviors, but we're still exhibiting those behaviors. So, if God doesn't actually help with that, what use is he? God becomes useless, at best, and justification for bad behavior, at worst.

The human brain hasn't changed since the days of the first shamans. Modern people still have subjective experiences which they interpret as being a deity. Modern people still use techniques which they believe will put them in touch with a deity. Here's an example from the modern, Western world.

Glossolalia

Incomprehensible speech in an imaginary language, sometimes occurring in a trance state, an episode of religious ecstasy, or schizophrenia.

Here's a short video showing speaking in tongues. The people at the service have worked themselves up into a kind of ecstatic hysteria and, when it's all calmed down, many of them are crying in the way that humans often do when they're deeply moved by something. Some people just believe anything they're told. Others believe in what organised religion tells them because they have subjective experiences which they interpret as confirming what they're told.

http://youtu.be/whpHwKlM_8M