Religion is an old form of it is what is, hope, direction, tradition, and community.

Can’t explain a thing or understand it God’s will or only God knows. Can’t do anything to help a person because they are in surgery pray or talk to God to wish for good outcomes.

Don’t feel loved or know what to do or wanted. God loves you, will show you the way, and wants you.

Most traditions and communities in the west were founded on a religion so you have hundreds of people to connect with at a church and maybe millions world wide that will help. Those raised on books of wisdom or what is right and wrong still tend to keep the values even after they move away from the religion but realize they can have values without divine beings

Lastly control. Just like businesses it is easier to control people under a religion so if you can get people indebted, traditionalized, and ostracized otherwise. You can control people easily. Lots of people don’t know what to do and why trust another human being but if a human being says wisely God said this it is easier to accept and gain a direction

The alternative is absolutely unfathomable. Like I am an atheist and the fact we exist in any capacity is insane. Where did everything come from? Where will it go? People believe in religion because it’s easier.

When I have an existential crisis over it I sometimes wish I was religious.

Because the lowest common denominator is much MUCH lower than you think it is.

This means it’s easy to indoctrinate and easy to maintain that for a massive number of people.

Scientific illiteracy is extremely high, and actual “6th grade reading comprehension” is the highest level of literacy for > 50% of a country like the U.S. and ~20% are low literacy or actually illiterate.

This means that half of everyone in the U.S. can read and understand what they read at or below a 6th grade level. This isn’t “reading big words”, it’s “tell us about what you read”, “what is the relationship between x & y” type questions.

This comment for example, up to this point only, would be difficult to understand & comprehend for > 50% of people in the U.S. (it demands an 11th grade reading comprehension). And may be misread, misunderstood, or not understood at all.

People are driven to religions to cults and alt conspiracy theories when they don’t understand how the world works around them. They latch onto extremely simple often misleading or incorrect ideas of how the world works because they can understand it and it “makes sense” within their sphere of ignorance (we all have one, this isn’t meant to be a disparaging term).

This means that the problem is that humans are just not smart enough to escape religion yet. It’s the simplest answer, and it appears to be correct.

I’m not religious at all. But in responding to your question OP: we don’t have to understand why people believe. Religion just isn’t for us, and that’s fine. Other people find it has value, and that’s fine too. The fact that religion has lasted this long with this many people is proof in itself that there’s some value people get out of it. We don’t have to get it to understand that.

All the comments here that explain religion solely as dumb or irrational are just as closed minded as the people they’re criticising.

Indoctrination at a young age.

Gods are literally just a psychological comfort blanket to explain the unexplainable. Most religious people don’t put that much thought into what they believe, challenging concepts are just tucked nicely away in the “Gods will” box and they move on. I think everyone copes with those brain shattering concepts in their own creative way or risk getting buried alive in anxiety.

I like how all these answers involving science fail to realize that the scientific method was used exclusively by many scholars and students who had no historical evidence of giving up their religion.

Empirical evidence is as old as humans, and afaik the modern scientific method has been in use since the Islamic golden age if not older.

The key here is that many of these people did not consider religion an empirical issue but a philosophical and ethical one. Particularly with the monotheistic religions, this would make sense because you can easily argue that it would be impractical to test for the existence of God.

I think a better question would be why do people believe in their respective religion if it contains a glaring contradiction(s).

Alternative ways of explaining the world have been around for like a century and a half, and religious conversion is slow.

Why we did religion in the first place instead of just “I dunno where stuff came from or why” is a much more interesting question IMO.

For the same reasons they always have.

The year has little to do with it. The only things we’ve really undeniably progressed in over the past century are scientific knowledge and the level of technology. Existential philosophy hasn’t exactly made breakthroughs recently, to my knowledge.

Each person still needs to find their own answer to the fundamental questions of “why am I here” and “wtf is death and how do I deal with it”.

Our mechanical, scientific understanding of reality provides fairly depressing answers to these questions. Religion? Sunshine and roses.

Also, on a more practical factor: childhood indoctrination and cultural inertia. Most people are raised in religion and they find it “good enough”, so religion continues.

One popular answer is that sometimes people just experience things that they find scientific answers to not be able to answer adequately. We as a species are still far from knowing everything.

In some religions walking away from the church means being excluded from family, social, and business contacts. So cutting ties with everyone you know basically.

Humans psyche is a meaning inference recursive engine, semiotically I mean, following Charles Sanders Peirce’s Theory of Signs, it generates meaning and thus needs a story to explain it, or simply to tell itself.

The story doesn’t need to hold sound logic or any objectivity true to reality, it only needs to convey the meaning that it generated so that the mind can believe it more than questioning its validity.

Long story short, humans really likes being told and believing stories, and often they are the ones telling the story right to themselves.

I, for real, want to know if there are any religious/spiritual people here commenting because yikes. I think a lot of people also interpreted your question to be about organized religion, and specifically christianity of the US variety. Please seek out other religious thoughts - I’ve found much Jewish thought on religion to be of interest. For myself, I’m not christian and not Jewish.

I’m religious because growing up, I adopted the values of the religion I was taught - values of kindness, openness, and inclusion. It’s as core a part of my being as my ways of cooking or socializing. To not be religious would feel like hiding parts of myself.

The routine of following the practices, as well as religion/spirituality being able to help us face the unknown we still have in our lives. It can provide internal strength and belief in our ability. I also find the routine a way to connect to my family, my culture, and to my day-to-day. My religious time is more a time of internal reflection on my own actions and if they align with my values. Do folks without a routine religious/spiritual practice do the same?

The community aspect some touched on is huge. I read a book, Palaces for the People, where it mentioned that those with strong social connections fare better in times of crisis. While there are institutions that are getting to the same influence of religious institutions, they are still far less impactful.

I guess this is all less a belief and more why do people still engage with religion. But why do we believe, what is the act of believing? I don’t have to believe that the sun will rise every morning, but, I do still believe it will rise every morning. Belief is a whole area of study alone I’m sure.

Indoctrination.