Why would you think that thousands of years is enough to evolve the mind of a hominid? Intellectual advancement is relative. Compared to the 13th century , yes maybe. We are not advanced compared to......? Religion serves a purpose. It provide community, doctrine, guide lines, ritual, satisfaction, absolution, continuity, control. Atheists are often described as grouchy, miserable, angry. Well yeah. We do not have the crutch of religion to explain the world. We only have reality & truth at the moment.

Yes

Hmmm, ancestors have been here millions of years, not thousands. Ignorance is still here. Don't believe me? Look no further than trump and his followers.

Yup

It is still here because it is beneficial to the ruling elites that it remains.

It is the ultimate eternal carrot and one helluva stick keeping the masses in their assigned lanes.

You have to remember that humans evolved as herd animals that instinctually gathered in groups for safety. Most people forget that humans are animals and subject to animal instincts, which in modern humans mostly express as emotions.

Our animal instincts are still in play, and many humans feel a sense of comfort and safety in belonging to a group. That instinct to belong to a group was hard wired into us. Religion gives people a sense of belonging and community, which we as animals instinctually crave, because in our evolutionary past it meant safety and a sense of well being to belong to a group.

If you consider that just 5,000 years ago, most humans still lived a in small villages, and that modern humans as a species are only about 200,000 years old. We have not evolved to a point where we feel instinctually secure without gathering in groups for a sense of belonging and safety.

That's because religion plays on people's deepest emotions and desires.

Sadly our nature makes us readily accept everything our cultures tell us. We are hard wired to accept cultural input without question.

But human culture in which we place so much faith, itself is almost completely pliable, and can be bent and shaped at will by those who control it, to say almost anything they wish, and it often says just random things which we inherit and no one controls, whose meaning is lost. So we place all our faith in something which often has no substance, or even makes any attempt at objective truth, a nebulous cloud reshaped by the merest puffs of wind. Like sailors trying to navigate by clouds rather than by the stars and the compass needle.

Yet in that there is also a contradiction, and a hope, because that means that we can also readily create counter cultures, like science, philosophy and history. Which do attempt to justify themselves by working hard to find objective testable truth, even if they can not succeed completely. And then it is just a matter of promoting those counter cultures well enough, a question of mere quantity rather than type.

Yep

Thousands? You mean like the 6,000 the Earth has been here? Or....?

Beliefs don’t have to be factually true

in order to be adaptively true.

Why would they!!!

They would not have anyone to cry to when they fuck up!!!!

It is so easy to stop is the irony. Put children first which means ban the targeted indoctrination of children into a belief ideology. Politicians always crap on how they do things for children. Could kill in a generation. Imagine the empowerment that will be gained by girls/ women which will benefit all.

Intellectual advancement & evolution have little to do with feelings & religion is is based on faith or institution. People have different needs which can be fulfilled with the intangible. I feel it so it is so. I believe it so it is so. Or the government requires that one appears to believe of lose their toenails. Dangerous beliefs. Dangerous system. Religion seems to fulfill a need that my teddy bear gives me. It is soothing & intractable in a chaotic world. Something to hold onto as we go down the drain. A world where everything is preplanned, god's will or beyond our control. The deeper question for me is if energy can not be destroyed only morphed, where does our consciousness go when our brain is dead? Religion has the answers to the unanswerable. Science does not & is fallible..

Old saying here with a newer connotation following it here.
"You CAN lead a horse to water, BUT you can NOT make it drink."
Newer connotation, " You can lead a Faithfool to reason BUT you can NOT make him/her think.
That should, imo, go some way towards clarifying the situation for you I hope.

Religion has been with humanity for 1000's of years and will still be with us for years to come. Religion is slowly shrinking in the US and western europe. Religion is insane how it treats people that don't believe as they do. Religion has failed to prove any gods exist. As religion shrinks, more people will wakeup to reality.

Why do you suppose that is?