Unresolved fear and loathing of mortality, lack of confidence in one's worthiness or abtility to think independently and critically, intellectual laziness, attraction to fascistic, authoritarian control of other's private lives, any number of things. The Abrahamic religions are an interlocking set of memes that are highly developed and very effective.

Religions also provide people with community and with that comes the fear of that community being taken away if you don't tow the party line.

To me it's about plonking god in the 'I don't know' section of life. And as has been commented elsewhere, it's lazy

Faith... unquestioning, uncompromising faith in their god, their religion. Justifying everything by way of their bibles... as Paul said, as Matthew said... as Jesus said.... unquestioning belief. Many highly educated, many not so much... also lotsa trump supporters, the blind leading the blind, blissfully happy... so many hypocrits.

Often it is a lack of training is critical thinking (should be part of every primary education).

Also, we're "wired" to beileve those things. It takes learning and consistent effort to avoid falling back into those modes.

No .... its coz they are stoopid !

Gods are a way of explaining what you do not know. Some people just have to know things and this leads to them making it all up. If you came from a stern family with a strict father you will most likely be raised up believing in a loving god. The problem is that eventually you find these ideas to be imaginary. Oh, did I say that was a problem? Only after becoming atheist did I really have freedom to live my life.

A variety of reasons: Social Pressure, Upbringing/indoctination: Your religion has more to do with where you come from and who your parents are. Born in the US to Catholic Parents, you're likely to be Catholic; Born in Iran to Shia Muslims, you're likely to be a Shiite Muslim. I would guess most don't reject logic and reason as long as it doesn't conflict with their religion or is insignificant to there existence. They still go to the doctor, but still pray or ask for prayers. It's also taught that Faith or Believing in things without evidence is a virtue.

I think there is a bit of evolution involved here.

I watched a documentary where birds were fed by pushign a button which worked by means of a random number generator. So, they had to press the buton several times befor egettign food and the number of times was random.

What happened ws amazing as soem birds devloped rituals of behavior. It was basically repetign behvior they did right before they fot food on one of their button pushes. They continued to repeat the "ritual" evey time righ tbefore they pushed the button. Thus the reliogion of pidgeons was born, or th start of it anyways.

You can probably see how a random event was given significance, which seemed justified to the birds. So, with people it wasnt' much different. However peopel are much more curious and want answers. When answers aren't redily available, they decide there must be soem unseen force (god) at work. They do rituals which develop based on their gettgin rewarded (liek the birds), and when randomness causes many rewards close together they put significance onto it. They think they foudn the right ritual to please the god.

What really happened with te girds,it that they were hard wired to duplicate behavior which brought them rewards, and this has an obvious evolutionary advantage, as the world in general is not quite so random as the number generatior. By focusign on bhaviors which gives them food, they usually, in the rel world get more food.

Thus evolution ironically has played a role in the devlopment of religion.

It's a faulty theory of knowledge called "religious faith". Instead of observing reality and drawing conclusions from it without regard to the imagined "sacred", it decides what is "true" and then bends facts to confirm it. Once you do that, you can go anywhere you can imagine. Logic doesn't get in your way, and "psychosocial factors", while helpful at times, are not necessary to keep you going.

It's all about not being dead after you die.

IMO it is fear of the unknown, even getting knowledge somtimes does not make people leave off with the belief in the imagery or a saving being. Because the fear feeling can come back and we're told - indoctrination - being spritual makes us a 'good' person. We all want to be a 'good' person.

This may be sort of far out, but I think that it depends how we are allowed to think and explore when we are very young. Everyone learns and views their world in their own different way.

So a child who would just sit or lie down at 5 months old unless they were approached with specific stimulation will learn a different set of things than one who is curious and active and can't sit still at the same age. And the people who teach each different type of child will end up with a different result, depending on their strictness or openness and encouragement for kids to learn on their own.

So I think a parent or teacher who is more involved and provides a child with a stimulating and interactive environment but allows the child to make decisions on its own will end up with someone more independent who thinks for themselves, in general. And a person who is judgemental and rigid in their thinking paired with a child who is either not very outgoing or who causes conflict in their interactions, may create a person with more one-way, rigid thinking themselves. Those people, I find, tend to be less apt to admit that they have made mistakes, or are wrong, and are frequently slow to even compromise.

The majority of people make decisions based on emotion. A much smaller percentage of people make decisions base on evidence and rational thinking.

Indoctrination 100% add in a touch of ignorance and mysticsm. There ya go...

scared, too much responsibility for them to accept.

I call it the first instinct vs. the second instinct. Mentally, we're all wired to jump to the extraordinary conclusion. As an example, years ago I saw a bunch of searchlights in the sky. "Flying saucers!" I immediately thought. But then my second instinct, my rational instinct, kicked in, and I saw them as searchlights, probably to advertise a business.

Most people don't make that jump between first instinct and second instinct. And I can understand why: first instinct: I have seen something special, which makes me special. Second instinct: I saw something that was unusual, but could be explained in normal ways. I am not special.

It’s the need to solve the puzzle. Religion solves it without having to think about it.

Its a way of dealing with death and being happy about it or it it can be a way of getting very rich.