I think its just built in analogous reasoning. To connect events we don't understand to events we can recognize and reliably remember.

I think it is part of the evolutionary process for humans to make assumptions and draw conclusions about things of which we have no knowledge. And, it is in our nature to assign agency to things we do not understand. It is quite understandable how forces of nature became gods and how dreams became messages from another realm. It was inevitable that some would see they could better control others by controlling their beliefs and demanding orthodoxy.

This question could be taken quite a few ways. In my answer I am going to assume that the word "myth" means the superstitious constructs that mankind has created to try to make sense of the universe. My answer is already existing in how I have defined the word "myth." Without diverting into the structure of our minds, let me refer you to Julian Jaynes work, "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind." Because we are animals that have developed brains that can conceive rationally of things beyond our own immediate need to survive we have sought to find causal explanations of why things exist or happen. In the process of trying to figure out why things happen or exist we made causal attributions. Historically, and particularly until the Scientific Revolution, we have made up causality where there wasn't any, or at best a correlational relationship. We are seekers of the question "why." So, in doing so we made up the most plausible explanations based on the knowledge and tools at our disposal. So, at first we made up "reasons" about the things around us,e.g., wind, clouds, etc and since we couldn't find answers we supposed that some god or power made it happen. This process happened in all areas of life, and those who could hallucinate could help to give explanations from the supposed revelations of past loved ones or messages of things not seen. Thus, myths arrived due to the lack of up to date information and due to the lack of the apparatus to evaluate those events. Those who could make the best, or at least un-arguable, reasons were looked at as having a special knowledge in finding answers, and thus, in our attempts to understand the world around us "myths" evolved. As we learned how to reason logically and scientifically the myths have fallen away, and will continue to do so. Some of these "myths" have taken on a type of meaning or value beyond their original beginnings and thus, you have non believer theologians who will use, for example, the resurrection as a "myth" of the newness of life, or the beginning of new things happening in our lives. So, myth evolved to where it is now used to share an idea but not a reality of causality. So, yes due to our "need" or desire to know why things happen we have created myths. I don't think this is a necessarily a genetic issue, but is certainly a unique human issue due to the nature of our brains having a split cortex.

Just like the nature vs nurture debate, it’s probably a bit of both but I would go with 20% genetic and 80% in our minds. In addition to this the 2% of schizophrenic nut cases easily influences all the other people. It is clearly an easy sell.

I think it is all in our minds, but I also think we are genetically programmed to want explanations for things, and when we lack explanations, we create myths to fill in the gaps in knowledge.

From an evolutionary point of view, common myths make for stronger communities or villages. Comon beliefs give people a sense of community and belonging, and as animals we needed to belong to a group to better insure survival. From that standpoint, acceptance of myths and stories as a bonding mechanism may be hardwired. For some more than others, but a propensity to like stories and myths would have better insured survival of our ancestors as hunter gatherers and beign accepted into a group.

We simply love to think that we know something the others don't, like we are the sole holder of the truth, it give us a sense of security, even if sometimes the thing we believe in are totally irrationnal

since we only got one frame of reference (ourselves, or our mind)

I think it's a survival trait

Yes we are, and yes it is.

I think we're wired to find meaning in chaos, to make sense of things we don't understand, which helped us stay alive millennia ago. As society advanced, our need to explain less pressing questions surfaced. So instead of just trying to identify threats in the rustling grass, we started developing elaborate stories about where we came from and what happens when we die.

Every society has it's myths and legends, so it would appear that it is a genetic propensity.

The reason so many myths are similar is because the human experience is at it's core very similar across cultures. It's the brain processing experience not genetics.

I would say yes, the storytelling led to creation myths led to religion. We tell stories with the want of feeling them to be so true in spite of reason.

Genetic? How would you go at quantifying it? I think that our Neolithic past is buried shallower than we think - sitting at some cave, watching fire and making up stories to explain the world - just there right under our collective skin. And in some ways it gave birth to science.

I read an article just yesterday which explains how brain evolution has created the idea of God. Good article but I can't find it now. What I did find, while looking for it, was this. Part 2 is really the good one. [npr.org]

What a great question. I'll be back to comment later. For now, I will say yes, we have a predisposition for storytelling and what better ways to tell stories than to embellish them with imaginary beings and places. Ah, the human mind and its creativity. We are THE creative species.