Humans evolved on the savannah recognizing movement and potential threat. Our brains are primed to presume the presence of agents that determine potential pursuits, attacks and escapes. What cannot be explained physically has to be explained by the supernatural.
Secondly, our brains are primed to look for answers …….to unusual events. “Luck is too miss and miss – – (unusual events have to be ascribed to ) God or prayer.
Thirdly, folk psychology allows us to predict human responses. On the savannah it was important to be able to outwit others.… thus, we can to distinguish good fellows from bad, understand the minds of ordinary people and imagine what it is like to be them. What doesn’t fit must have something to do with the spirit world and the supernatural.
Children are born with a tendency to believe in omniscience, invisible minds and immaterial souls. ….. Thus people can believe in what is minimally counter-intuitive, as long as it is not preposterous.
Fourthly, religion helps us deal with the certainty of death. It is hard to imagine ourselves no longer existing or thinking, but it is easy to imagine ourselves existing after death.
Fifthly, religion might have helped primitive man form groups, become attached to and offer mutual help, attract mates, find and store food and become more cohesive as a tribe. Religious rituals help maintain communal structures in hard time and allows the tribe to imagine its superiority and exclusivity over others.
Lastly, God fills an emptiness that our big-brain mental architecture interprets as a yearning for the supernatural.
New York Times magazine, March 4th, 2007 Adaptation of “Why we believe – how evolutionary science explains belief in God” by Robin Marantz Henig
I have no problem with religion as long as it is kept personal. it is clearly important to a majority of people, and if it gives aid and comfort so much the better. It is when it is forced upon others, or when the priesthood gets ideas beyond its station in life that it becomes indefensible.