I find religion strange. It’s like believing in crystal balls and other such supernatural stuff. But each to his own. Maybe our brains are wired differently.

It's not weird. Intelligent people accept there's no meaning to life. We get old and die, just like any other living thing. And there is often suffering in between. Being born into a war zone or poverty would be the worst case scenario. Life can be brutal and bleak.

So religion seems a very human type response. It's a comforting delusion which gets the weak minded through the journey. An almost evolutionary adaptation for survival.

Unfortunately, religion is still a delusion.

I think some people definitely want a path laid out for them and to live forever. People fear the unknown...all of us do to certain degree and religion provides answers to questions science can't yet or doesn't convince people yet. I don't think religion is a "bad" thing in itself giving people a pretty solid ideal to work towards. Implementation of any theory is riddled with all kinds of people that take advantage so I don't really t hold that against "religions". I mean take a Communist or Capitalist theory of govt...both work perfectly in theory but neither really work very well in practice. Some people are still more driven by greed than any belief/ideology can contain...doesn't mean everyone is bad
I believe most people in most religions are trying to do what most non-religious are...just be good people and get better everyday. How we choose to get there shouldn't make a bit of difference.

You must begin with the realization that human beings are not "rational" creatures. The part of the brain that does the heavy lifting for symbolic thought arrived late in the evolutionary day and is very much subservient to its predecessor "brain stem" neurons. Simply put, human behavior is primarily emotionally driven. Each culture programs those emotions in a particular way. The mega-culture on the planet at the moment includes elements that we classify as "religious". Those elements are "super natural" i.e. things not part of physical reality. Hence they are immune to physical evidence or "reason" ( a fairly recent invention of our species). It is all atavistic, i.e. left-overs from our past. In practice, it is cognitively dissonant for believers to examine their dogma since it cannot be reconciled with empirical experience. That dissonance is directly in proportion to the degree to which the individual is programmed in the mega-culture's super-naturalism. The good news is that in the developed world (Europe, Japen, etc) that programming grows weaker and weaker and is function gone in much of it. The bad news is that in the United States it is woven in pretty deeply and is fully integrated with the ruling mechanisms. So, all we can do is strive to teach our children the elements of the post-enlightenment world-view and wait for the US to catch up with the world in its cultural development in this area. Slim hope though it might be.

The vast majority of people believe in a religion. I define the term "weird" as "unusual, often with a negative implication". I don't think you can can consider unusual when it's the vast majority of people

The vast majority of people believe in a religion. I define the term "weird" as "unusual, often with a negative implication". I don't think you can can consider unusual when it's the vast majority of people

Who knows why people believe what they believe?

I suppose those who believe these things don’t think that they are weird. I sometimes think that people who believe fervently in something like a deity cannot accept any criticism of it because it will chip away at their belief and that would make them confront the fact that they could be wrong. They can't allow any doubt to creep into their thinking because it could topple the whole edifice. It is much more comfortable to pedal conspiracy theories and be in denial.

Religion is delusion, pure and simple. Maybe a happy one for the believers, but still, total delusion.

I have a friend who is an 81 year old retired psychoanalyst. He has done a lot of research on the subject and he told me that humans, as far back as can be studied, have always had an innate need to worship something. It is apparently in our genes to worship something and there have been those among us who were fortunate enough to convince the majority of the rest of us to pay for the privilege.

I am of the personal opinion that many religious people are counting on getting into heaven no matter what atrocities they commit in life, based only on their status as believers. It's also my belief that religion is by and large the biggest con in the history of humankind.