We have two needs that those who believe in God would label so:

1. The need to understand. This encourages the god of the gaps belief.

2. The need for fantasy. On some level we seem to need to at least temporarily believe in something beyond our mundane existence. Fortunately, there are plenty of authors cranking out works to feed this need without having to resort to something as all-consuming as religion.

The last church that we attended preached this a LOT. It honestly rings false to me, at least for a percentage of the population.

That it’s simply a ‘belief,’ by a sect looking to project their fears and limitations on as much of humanity as they can subjugate. I have read research ‘concluding’ a human need ‘to believe’ something … but was never convinced of it.. Occasional doubts, fears or wonder strike everyone, it’s how we deal with them that sets us apart. Do we run to a ‘father figure,’ someone anointed as the all knowing? Or do we take a breath, calm, and attempt to make sense of it amid those willing to admit, we don’t know?

Not everyone has the "God gene" as I like to call it, but some definitely do. It's an innate need to have things explained, and I believe it comes from our biological imperative for survival. IOW, that life after death is real...

None...even though I raised catholic no need...

I have heard that, but I don't buy it. I've watched some good videos on this very topic ( I'll see if i can find them). The gist of it was that those early hominids interested in survival would make snap judgements about their environment...that rustle in the brush could be just the wind or it could be a predator...better to err on the side of caution than to have your face face bitten off.

The argument was that this basically evolved into us applying quick causes to unseen forces.

My amateur understanding of the current scientific consensus (to the extent there is one) is that, what we would call hard-wiring is a set of natural biases or preferences that have proven to give us survival and reproductive advantages, and are distributed broadly, if unevenly, throughout the population, BUT are most often remarkably malleable by cultural influence or personal experience. A number of the top scientists in related fields, such as E. O. Wilson, and I think Dawkins too, suggest that our impulse to religious thinking has this biological underpinning. But we long ago outgrew our biological captivity, and will forever now be creatures of our own making. We are not, therefore, complete humans anymore without lots of training. The “hardwiring” (nature) can and must be reformed (nurture) in a majority of cultural decision makers if our species is to survive. To think that religion is nothing more than a bad idea that can easily be swept away is a recipe for frustration at best, and disaster at worst. It is a persistent biological influence that requires deep understanding, careful planning, perennial training, and tireless compassion if we are to survive its now maladaptive influence.

Well we're not hardwired for God, but we are curious creatures. And when we don't understand something, we'll assign the best term for it that we have in our language.

Our human minds search for answers to things we do not understand and we have a natural tendency to assign agency to things that happen. Gods become a convenient way to answer the unknown. I was a believer in a specific god (Christian Protestant) into my early thirties. I then thought there was some sort of more generic god until I realized I was an atheist in my early forties. Since then, I have never felt a "god hole." I have never once felt the need to believe in a god and the world makes much more sense to me now. If there should be a god that gives a rip what I think/believe (ie the Christian god) then it certainly has done a poor job of making me miss it; and, believe me, early on in my journey I begged for it to not let me get led astray. Christians will say that I was never a true believer--they have to in order to make sense of it--and I was once like them. But, now, of course, I know better.

Dawkins mentions it, but it's not something I've every felt, and I'm so glad. Freedom from bullshit is delightful.

None what so ever... I reckon I was short circuit at birth.

I have read that children between the ages of about 3 and 7 pass through a stage of magical thinking. I don't remember enough about that time of my development to say for sure, but I don't remember any voluntary magical thinking. To say that we are hard wired to want to believe in the god of the bible is demonstrated to be false by the existence of belief in all the other gods. The laws of nature is our attempt to scientifically define a power, or powers, that are obviously greater than ourselves. I think the need to try and understand the reality around us is an inborn trait. But to try to equate that power with the god of the bible, or any other god, is a distortion of reality which I don't see as a necessity of an inborn trait.

If your family brought you up in their house of worship you are indoctrinated into their religion. It is not a natural human condition. It is a learned belief.

We have a need to understand the world around us and it was an evolutionary advantage to ascribe agency to things that we didn't understand way back in our development.