I Don't understand how in this day of age people are still able to believe in the fairy tales called religion.
You have my sympathy for your limited imagination.
Not sure I can get behind the "in this day and age" part. In most ways, we are not that different from our ancestors, except that we are less clever and less adaptable. Just because we have all these gadgets and toys doesn't mean we have really evolved much. Science -- REAL science -- is a shining exception, but it is still under attack by lesser and more fearful minds.
I don't understand how people can live without it. When I turn on the news and I see a world almost completely devoid of basic human decency, respect for objective truth and for the feelings of others I pray that there is a better version or vision of this world that will eventually take hold among all humanity. I just don't see how that can occur in my life time without intervention from a higher power. Of course the only higher power I believe in is the higher consciousness which I believe exists in all humans. So how do we get people in act in concert with that higher "power". The obvious question that I don't have an answer to is, Is everyone capable of higher thought? Evidence points to no. That's where my faith comes in. I must have faith that consciousness evolves just as everything else does.