Why is religion especially Christianity so widely practied?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Christianity was good for destroying cultures.

[notimportant1234]

Maybe because humans think using cause and effect not using probability.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Maybe because humans think using cause and effect not using probability.

Or they think that their imaginary friend is better than other peoples' imaginary friends.

[notimportant1234]

Maybe because humans think using cause and effect not using probability.

Or they think that their imaginary friend is better than other peoples' imaginary friends.

Mine clearly is. Pray for Satan. 

[AFTT47]

A societal system using faith to give hope is very popular for counteracting hopelessness in societies, especially poor ones as Godzilla pointed out. There are also, probably plenty of other reasons such as a structured set of practices for day-to-day life is a was to systematically structure the chaotic world around you. Maybe, a societal group focused on reaching out to people in need is an outlet for feelings of compelling philanthropy. I'm certain there are plenty of others.

I suspect this is very nearly right.  Virtually all religions hold out the promise of 'better things in the next life', which must look pretty attractive to peasants who share a mud hut with various units of livestock.

Boru

Christianity and Islam wield a stick too. The carrot and the stick is an effective combination.

[WinterHold]

Because it's innate capacity to assume a creator.
The skies are too big -actually gigantically big as science proved- to be "a production that came to exist by itself".

The odds for life support are too many to count. You just keep living and discovering these odds, and with every discovery you just stand with a big question mark: "is something out there? who is staging this for me to find?"

An earth, supplied with O2, a sun and a moon rotating that earth in a perfect orbit to allow us to calculate time and so much more.
The odds are too many.

So people believe something is out there. The atheistic explanation just doesn't fit.

[Godscreated]

As far as Christianity is concerned people have actually found the right answers and seek to find even more truth, has it ever occurred to you that Christians are seeking more and more truth and actually finding it. I know I have and it's undeniable, there's no way I can put away that which I know to be true.

GC

[The Grand Nudger]

Pagans thought the same.

[Acrobat]

I understand that this may sound like a stupid question. However this is something I really never understand. Why do we give so much credence to a belief surrounding a single man? I have read accounts that the actual man Jesus Christ did exist. However, is "powers" or whatever were severely exaggerated. This question goes for Islam and Judaism as well. You know, the big three. And I do know these 3 do stem from each other. But why? Why are these so widely practiced?

For a variety of reason for most people the idea of a lack of belief is nonsense, trading in belief for a lack of belief isn’t a real transition trading in one set of belief for another is.

And for such individuals the only sort of alternative to religious beliefs, is a view of reality in which we’re just some cosmic accident, that sheer excessiveness of life, our desire for meaning, good, etc... is just a fluke or quirk of nature, seem far less belivable that a talking a donkey, or a man putting two sets of every animal on a wooden cruise ship.

They tend to reject atheism as a worldview, containing moral subjectivism, life as a cosmic accident, purposesless and meaningless, what they don’t realize is that many atheists don’t actively hold such views, but instead prefer the non-commital, aversion to beliefs, especially on big questions, called “lack of belief”. They tend to also dislike this type of non-commital, wishwashiness that atheists today seem to be a fan of.

[The Grand Nudger]

Contemporary theories of religion posit that costly rituals exclude free-riders.   Cost, not just in terms of financial resources, but also socio-temporal.  The notion is that religion is a product subject to economic forces which seeks to maximize utility in this life (and any proposed afterlife), the club buy in meant to separate those committed from those who merely seek to extract utility from the group identity. To make a long story short, it's a negotiation between believing and belonging.

That suspicion can be seen on full display in the comments above.