Why Do People Need Religion?

[Rebel]

What is it with human's obstinate reliance on religion, in one form or another, be it tossing virgins into volcanoes in far more primitive days, or symbolically drinking the blood of some cosmic zombie in the hopes of everlasting life?
I would like to think that as we continue to become enlightened to more practical information and reasoning, we would become less sensitized to religious indoctrination. Yet it seems that religion has begun to strengthen it's stranglehold on mankind, causing the incitement of radicalism and the banging of war drums.

Since my conversion from christianity to atheism, I've considered religion the most nefarious practical joke mankind has ever perpetrated upon itself. Even more so than the GotP. And I wonder, why, exactly?

I believe there are various reasons, from mere survival to the desire of immortality. Or perhaps to wield fear-based power over the masses.

But, all the reasons seem archaic by modern standards. So, why does religion endure beyond cultural indoctrination?

[bennyboy]

If you think you've "converted" from Christianity to atheism, then with all due respect you haven't. What you've done are shed the shackles of a cultural fairy tale. You haven't added or changed anything, only removed a psychological impediment to your clear thinking.

And, to me, that answers your OP. From an individual perspective, clear thinking can be harmful; if you spend all your time trying to understand your mind and your life, you may end up sitting under a tree and meditating, rather than paying bills and making and feeding offspring. From a social perspective, obviously leaders do NOT want people sitting around thinking about what really matter in life, and what is right or wrong, because bowing down to some alpha-male dick and building his castle for him is probably not going to come up top on your list of fun things to do.

[Reforged]

Because most peoples lives are depressing without any realistic prospect of improvement and end before having achieved anything of real significance.
Infact the only thing alot of people have to show for their lives is that they managed to plop out a mini-me before they succumbed to oblivion. Its a truth that has no redeeming qualities and you can face it either with varying degrees of denial or weary resignation.

[Minimalist]

Most people don't need an appendix but they are born with it.  In that, it is much like religion.

Except religion is even more useless.

[houseofcantor]

People are prone to magical thinking.

[ignoramus]

Being apes, we will always love slinging shit at others, whether it's for being poorer, richer, smarter, dumber, different skin, etc.
Religion is the vehicle which divinely legitimises these xenophobic feelings we have towards each other.
Religion brings gang warfare into the household. It's very hard to shake off since we are predominantly emotional animals.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

People need religion because people are - for the most part - ignorant and terrified.

Ignorance is what leads them to think that sacrifices will appease or control nature, personified as gods. Terror is what causes them to believe in an afterlife. People in general are so unable to imagine a world in which they are not, that they dream up the most fantastical, albeit comforting, notions that they (all everyone who agrees with them) will never die. I think it was Robert Heinlein who remarked that the acceptance of one's own mortality is the hallmark of emotional maturity (or it may have been Spike Milligan, I get the two confused).

This is why I largely dismiss the reports and surveys that from time to time herald 'the death of religion'. Religion isn't going anywhere. As long as people remain untaught and fearful, they're going to need the illusory comfort that religion provides. People as a whole aren't becoming any less religious, they're merely swapping organized religion for a more nebulous spirituality (which is rather like swapping athlete's foot for jock itch, and thinking you've made a gain).

Boru

[abaris]

It seems that every new theist feels obliged to ask the moral question and every atheist the why religion question.

But the answer to that is always the same. Fear of the last frontier. Death, the wish to see ones relatives and friends again in some afterlife. A bonding experience that also can be provided by any secular group. Ideology to make yourself feel exclusive. Can also take on every secular form of ideology.

[Homeless Nutter]

1. Death is scary.
2. Most people's lives are boring.
3. Science is hard.
4. Fairy-tales are fun.

Hence religion.

[robvalue]

I see religion as more of a con than a joke. It would be funny if it wasn't so harmful.