Why Do People Need Religion?

[Mudhammam]

The brain is hardwired for mythologizing the sense data it receives - hence, the tendency towards fabricating or exaggerating or oversimplifying: memories, problems, self-importance, etc.; or the animism that probably gave rise to belief in spirits, then deities. This can be useful in that it serves as a pleasant distraction from an oftentimes grim and depressing reality, and to that extent, fairy tales are like any other pastime. I enjoy imagining the great voyage Odysseus embarked upon in his return to Ithaca from Troy as some people probably like to speculate on Jewish eschatology and what ancient moralists were actually attempting to convey; I like to fictionalize the dinner conversations Socrates must have had with his more gifted students, Plato, Aristippus, Xenophon, Antisthenes, Phaedo, and the rest, just as some people like to spend their time playing video games. The only danger is when reality takes a back seat and becomes less important than the fantasy, or it is thought that the former can only, or most fully, be understood by the latter.

[abaris]

The brain is hardwired for mythologizing the sense data it receives

I wouldn't go as far. It's hardwired to feel special by being part of some select group. In this sense every secular ideology can take up the role of religion as well. It already happened with the more prominent ideologies of the 20th century.

Where religion comes in with a vengeance, is the fear of death and the desire to meet one's deceased loved ones again.

[Mudhammam]

The brain is hardwired for mythologizing the sense data it receives

I wouldn't go as far. It's hardwired to feel special by being part of some select group. In this sense every secular ideology can take up the role of religion as well. It already happened with the more prominent ideologies of the 20th century.

Where religion comes in with a vengeance, is the fear of death and the desire to meet one's deceased loved ones again.

Sure, but the brain fabricates as a matter of necessity. It only stores a small amount of information in comparison to all of the data that it is constantly bombarded with, which it then connects with other events and memories that actually share no objective relation; when these are recalled, they're often distorted and reconstructed in new contexts. The very idea that there is a single, individual ego behind the eyeballs which is free to think and act as it chooses is a mythology, and one we cannot really detach from except in moments of philosophical contemplation.

[Mermaid]

A few things.

Ego: We are God's creation. God created the earth and the animals and all living things, and gave us domain over them all. (Oh, yeah, and by the way, at the end of the day, he also created the heavens and stars and shit, in like an hour). We are the center of the universe, and we didn't evolve from no goddamn monkeys. God made us, we are SPECIAL.

Death: We can't accept that people die and turn into worm food. We have to have an afterlife because death can't be the end of it. Hence the eternal soul thing. Nobody really dies. When their body dies, we will see them again. This is the part that makes me envy religious people most. I wish I could believe that, death of people and pets that I love would be so much easier to handle if I could rationalize that I would see them again.

Magic: When something is too complicated to understand, magic happens. God created it. It's easier to say that than to learn the complexities of genes and proteins and ecology and molecules and planets and physics.

Parenting: It's easier to let someone else take the reins and control a person's fate. Therefore, The Lord is everyone's Daddy. You need to turn your life over to him and relax. He's got your back.

[drfuzzy]

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

Hence religion.

Pretty much.   Add in:  wanting to believe they can control things that cannot be controlled.  (Including the lucky jersey or cap or whatever ritual goes with watching your team on television.)  Wanting power and control over others. (I can make it rain.  I can also make the gods angry with you.  Do what I say and give me money.)

[Vincent]

I think it's a combination of needing to feel that what you're doing has a "higher" purpose, the comfort that an imaginary friend provides, and needing a way to cope with death, rather than just accepting it.

[Ludwig]

The fear of death is probably one of the biggest reasons. It's something that no amount of technology can take away from us. Death is as inevitable for humans today as it was a hundred thousand years ago.

[LastPoet]

Also, we have generally some imagination, even something as basic as the xtian or muslim ideas of gods.

Just add a book full of vague bs that looks like something profound and people will run with that. Usually god agrees with the particular believer to a tee.

[Mudhammam]

The fear of death is probably one of the biggest reasons. It's something that no amount of technology can take away from us. Death is as inevitable for humans today as it was a hundred thousand years ago.

Indeed, one of the themes of the Garden of Eden myth is mankind's realization of their finitude, and a sense that we, who have a vague conception of eternity, are somehow fallen from that more perfect condition. It is the paradox of our being in a sort of intermediate state between the brutes who only gaze downward at the earth and those limitless marvels of the heavens which we have the ability to touch by fixing our eyes and minds on the realms above.

[robvalue]

Obsession with some balanced cosmic justice for all.

So, inability to stomach reality again.