OR... does fundamentalism tend to draw people that are more disturbed and mentally unstable. It's kind of a 'chicken or the egg' scenario (although we know the egg came first). Mythology (which all religion falls under) has given us some amazing stories, while at the same time allowing us to look deep into the human psyche. These stories give us perspective amid the chaos that constantly surrounds us, and help us find a place to step when all we have are dark nights.

It's been suggested by sociologists that "religion" is our default program since we've been chasing after the gods since we first became conscious. Evolutionary, it was a way to... well... make sense of the chaos. It was the mind's way of giving us a reason to keep pushing forward even in the face of adversity. Without it, the species probably would have died out long ago. It's one of the side-effects of consciousness.