why do people follow religions?

You wrong there is a big solid proof. Have you ever read The Holy Quran(it was written by Prophet Mohammed 1500 years ago). It has never been changed, it is original. Even one letter is not changed.

If you don't believe anything about GOD. I really amazing how you explain yourself everything that you see. You can say that science is explain everything. Don't forget also science needs a creates.

Good question. People follow religions as they need a mental 'crutch'. Someone or something that cant be proved so therefore needs no proof. Something to 'give praise' to when things go well and make pathetic excuses for when things go 'belly up'. Control was also a factor ie behave yourself and be'good' and your reward will be in heaven.

I never understand how intelligent people embrace religion. Christianity has a lot to answer for and Islam and its fanatical 'blind faith' followers is probably the most dangerous threat to world peace and harmony that exists.

When the world stops preying to its various mythical beings and starts talking to each other ie, real people we will all live in a better place.

Yusuf - Proof? written 1500 years ago - Yea Right!

Proof is a mathematical concept. Existence is a philosophical concept. You can't prove that anything exists. I perceive that there's a large shop called Tesco's near my home, but it might be a figment of my imagination.

Life and religion are about belief, not about proof. You accept electricity - you're even prepared to pay for it - but you've never seen it, touched it or smelt it. Some people think they've seen electricity in lightning, but that's just the light given off by gases that have been briefly ionised when the voltage across them causes their dielectric properties to change and a current to flow. We believe that the light is caused by electricity and we can reproduce the effect, but we can't prove it. For most of us, we accept it because we've heard it from someone we trust and the same is true of religion.

There are matters relating to our existence (assuming we exist) that are beyond our tiny hunter-gatherer brains. We can come to grips with them by making models. We have models for understanding electricity and we have models for understanding existence. The first we call physics and the second we call religion. Of course there are some hunter-gatherer brains that are too small to be able to grasp the concept of models. They believe that the world really is made of ping-pong balls joined together with matchsticks and that God is an old man sitting on a cloud granting wishes. They then claim that physics and religion are nonsense because they can't prove either.

Because people are naturally conservative. People are far more inclined to stick with old things they believe are right even if they are not (eg the Queen, she serves no purpose and costs the tax payer thousands and yet we still have her) and if they were raised to believe it. When you are young you take in everything your parents tell you including religion and it is these things that are hard for people to question.

Its been around for centuries and most people are too lazy or stupid (South USA) to question it.

Religion is just a way to get through life. Thers no right or wrong religion people follow religion beacuse it gives them something to believe in it, it helps them live there lives with less confusion and fear. It brings structure and a way to hopefully live a better life.

BB

I follow Christianity because I was raised atheist and a Godless world just made no sense to me.There is proof on the bible.For example in the bible the fact that we have genes was mentioned.Now tell me how could it mention genes years before we discovered genes if if was fake?

Also evolution was God's slow process of creating Adam and Eve.Well he created humans who had no intelligence and consciousness .But he created Adam and Eve as spirits but when they disobeyed him he put them in those human bodies on Earth here in our physical world.God's plan was for them to repopulate and hopefully one day all humans would live in peace and work together.God lives in the spiritual world and we can't see that world from our physical world that seems so full of logic to disprove him.I believe that when God made the physical world he made it were any intelligent life wouldn't be sure he did anything at all because it seems so logical.Also the great flood mentioned in the bible did happen.In 6000 BC there was a huge Hurricane that rose 1700 feet in the air and covered most land.Destroyed villages and skeletons have been found under water.This is believed to be the great flood were Noah built his ark.Remains of that ark have been found.Don't hurricanes flood land? Also a hurricane happens by underwater earthquakes that cause huge waves that build up when they hit shallow water and spill over land.This would be Gods intelligent way of making it look like a cause of nature to test all our faith.Because the cause just seems so logic.Like the big bang it seems so logic and accidental that atoms came together and expanded faster than the speed of light.That speed is called plank time.It's mind blowing to scientist that something is actually faster than the speed of light.Well when your God something can be faster than the speed of light.Wouldn't it make sense that black wholes are gate ways to other universes' made by God?You see there are so many invisible forces we can't see but we know they are there.Like gravity magnetic fields oxygen and so on.Isn't it possible that the spiritual world were God is at hasn't been discovered by humans because we can't see it.That would explain a lot like our consciousness and concept of right and wrong.It would explain why we all ache for answers to the endless questions of the universe.It's the faith inside of us trying to lead us to the truth.This is why I follow religion.

People have difficulty coming to terms with mortality and insignificance. There is comfort in the notion of a grand scheme, of rewards in a next life, of some universal sky-father to turn to, follow, and ultimately, blame.

There are many reasons and even scientists have admitted it is difficult to prove/disprove His/Her/It's existence. I have given a long answer to illustrate the reasons. Please read with patience and an open mind.

The philosophical arguments about God have the following basis:

- Metaphysical, Empirical, Inductive, Subjective, perceived holes in Evolution theory, and Order and Complexity of the World (For existence of God)

- Empirical, Deductive and Inductive - (against existence of God)

Some theologians, such as the scientist and theologian A.E. McGrath, argue that the existence of God cannot be adjudicated on for or against by using scientific method. Agnostic Stephen Jay Gould argues that science and religion are not in conflict and do not overlap.

The last centuries of philosophy have seen vigorous questions regarding the arguments for God's existence raised by such philosophers as Immanuel Kant, David Hume and Antony Flew, although Kant held that the argument from morality was valid. The theist response has been either to contend, like Alvin Plantinga, that faith is "properly basic"; or to take, like Richard Swinburne, the evidentialist position. Some theists agree that none of the arguments for God's existence are compelling, but argue that faith is not a product of reason, but requires risk. There would be no risk, they say, if the arguments for God's existence were as solid as the laws of logic, a position summed up by Pascal as: "The heart has reasons which reason knows not of."

Stephen Jay Gould proposed an approach dividing the world of philosophy into what he called "non-overlapping magisteria" (NOMA). In this view, questions of the supernatural, such as those relating to the existence and nature of God, are non-empirical and are the proper domain of theology. The methods of science should then be used to answer any empirical question about the natural world, and theology should be used to answer questions about ultimate meaning and moral value. In this view, the perceived lack of any empirical footprint from the magisterium of the supernatural onto natural events makes science the sole player in the natural world.

Another view, advanced by Richard Dawkins, is that the existence of God is an empirical question, on the grounds that "a universe with a god would be a completely different kind of universe from one without, and it would be a scientific difference."

Carl Sagan argued that the doctrine of a Creator of the Universe was difficult to prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery that could challenge it would be an infinitely old universe.

PROBLEM OF EVIL:

In The Nature of Necessity, Plantinga presents his free will defense to the logical problem of evil. Plantinga's aim is to show that the existence of an omniscient, omnipotent, wholly good God is not inconsistent with the existence of evil, as many philosophers have argued.

In a truncated form, Plantinga's argument is as follows: He argues that it is greater for a being to possess free will, as opposed to being non-free. And because a God cannot guarantee the benevolence of a truly free being without intervention or influence, thus removing free will, it follows that for a being to have true free will that they must be capable of moral evil else such a being would be only capable of moral good, which in itself is as Plantinga stated: "Entirely paradoxical". Plantinga goes on to argue that a world with free will is more valuable than a world without such, therefore God has reason to create a world which has the capability of evil. Thus because of this the existence of evil counts "neither against God's omnipotence nor against His goodness", rather it is an error by the creature in their exercise of such freedom.

According to Chad Meister, professor of philosophy at Bethel College, most contemporary philosophers accept Plantinga's argument.

Plantinga argues that belief in God is properly basic, and due to a religious externalist epistemology, he claims belief in God could be justified independently of evidence.

A solid belief in magic, indoctrination and fear.

Indoctrination, primarily.

Sometimes comfort, sometimes for social reasons...there's lots of reasons.

Mostly indoctrination.