Humankind has evolved to the point that they are conscious of their own mortality.

M. Lamar Keene, the infamous spirit medium con man, bemused the fact that scam victims believed and refused to reject such obvious lies:
"The true-believer syndrome merits study by science. What is it that compels a person, past all reason, to believe the unbelievable. How can an otherwise sane individual become so enamored of a fantasy, an imposture, that even after it's exposed in the bright light of day he still clings to it - indeed, clings to it all the harder? No amount of logic can shatter a faith consciously based on a lie." - M. Lamar Keene

Eric Hoffer, the author of The True Believer, explains why people reject themselves and others in order to be "saved”: "By renouncing the self we are getting out from underneath the only burden that is real. For however much we identify ourselves with a holy cause, our fears on its behalf can never be as real and poignant as our fear and trembling in behalf of a perishable self. The short-lived self, teetering on the edge of irrevocable extinction, is the only thing that can ever really matter. Thus the renunciation of the self is felt as a liberation and salvation." [the rejected self: Colossians 3:3; Romans 6:1-14]

"That self-hatred should generate in us an eagerness to unite with others seems to suggest that it is primarily against ourselves that we league ourselves with others." - Eric Hoffer

"The fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure. He cannot generate self-assurance out of his individual resources - out of his rejected self - but finds it only by clinging passionately to whatever support he happens to embrace. This passionate attachment is the essence of his blind devotion and religiosity, and he sees in it the source of all virtue and strength - He easily sees himself as the supporter and defender of the holy cause to which he clings. And he is ready to sacrifice his life." - Eric Hoffer

Most religions are established obsessions created by fear and hope; the fear of death, and the hope of eternal life. Fanatics or "Fans" are created using this same concept. You have probably noticed this pattern in films or TV serials. There is always a hope (romance, wealth, health, fame, eternal life, etc.), and always a fear or threat (too ugly, too fat, not perfect, death, horrible death, gruesome death, eternal death, death worse than death, etc.).

Religion intensifies this obsession by exaggerating the hope and fear of a supposed afterlife. Religion imposes the idea that a person no longer just dies, the dead will either experience an eternal bliss in heaven with mansions and angel servants FOREVER (hope - 1 Corinthians 15:54-55), or an eternal punishment of torment burning in a lake of fire FOREVER (fear - Revelation 21:8 ). It couldn't be more obvious, worshiping a dead man on a cross that has supposedly conquered death and hell and invites you to do the same.

Religion tells us that we don't have to ACCEPT death, which allows religion to impose itself into the five stages of grief. Of the five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, it is acceptance that religion thwarts, which allows the other stages to remain prominent in various ways. By not coming to acceptance, the religious mind will sustain denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, which religion uses to justify itself and subjugate its followers. When a believers faith is challenged most will deny, bargain, get angry or depressed rather than ACCEPT reality.

If a person cannot ACCEPT that once they die there is nothing afterward, then they will embrace their unsubstantiated beliefs no matter what.

"Both Faith and Terror are instruments for the elimination of individual self-respect. Terror crushes the autonomy of self-respect, while Faith obtains its more or less voluntary surrender. In both cases the result of the elimination of individual autonomy is - automatism. Both Faith and Terror reduce the human entity to a formula that can be manipulated at will." - Eric Hoffer

Pride is an explosive substitute for self-esteem: "Give people pride and they'll live on bread and water, bless their exploiters, and even die for them. Self-surrender is a transaction of barter: we surrender our sense of human dignity, our judgment, our moral and esthetic sense for pride. If there is pride in being free we are ready to die for liberty. If there is pride to be derived from an identification with a leader, we grovel in the dust before a Napoleon, Hitler or Stalin and are ready to die for him. If there is distinction in suffering, we search for martyrdom as for hidden treasure." - Eric Hoffer

This notorious Catholic understood this concept: "FOR HOW SHALL WE FILL PEOPLE WITH BLIND FAITH in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure? Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, COMES INTO COLLISION WITH EXACT SCIENCE AND RESEARCH, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas - IT IS ONLY SUCH DOGMAS WHICH LEND TO THE WHOLE BODY THE CHARACTER OF A FAITH." [Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" Vol. 2 Chapter 5]

"I have followed [the Church] in giving our party program the character of unalterable finality, like the Creed. The Church has never allowed the Creed to be interfered with. It is fifteen hundred years since it was formulated, but every suggestion for its amendment, every logical criticism, or attack on it, has been rejected. The Church has realized that ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING can be built up on a document of that sort, no matter how contradictory or irreconcilable with it. THE FAITHFUL WILL SWALLOW IT WHOLE, SO LONG AS LOGICAL REASONING IS NEVER ALLOWED TO BE BROUGHT TO BEAR ON IT" [Adolf Hitler, from Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction, pp. 239-40]

The reality is that the fear of death and the survival instinct is very strong. Many religions, especially the Abrahamic religions, exalt the survival instinct to the point of justifying it above everything else. This creates pleonexia (extreme selfishness and greed) at the expense of this planet and all life on it. An "every man for himself attitude". This greed causes fear, hate, war, genocide, cruelty, division and separation, racism, prejudice, etc., and channels the wealth and resources of the planet into the hands of those who manipulate the fears of humankind.

"Pleonexia, sometimes called pleonexy, originating from the Greek πλεονεξια, is a philosophical concept which roughly corresponds to greed, covetousness, or avarice, and is strictly defined as "the insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others", suggesting what Ritenbaugh describes as "ruthless self-seeking and an arrogant assumption that others and things exist for one's own benefit." - Zadie Smith

The reality is we all have the same needs; food, water, shelter, security, healthcare, etc. Yet religion is used to purposely divide us on issues that don't matter, causing believers to be fanatically involved with who others love or have sex with, where they pee, what they eat, everything and anything as long as it keeps people divided. If people could ever unite over their common needs, disregard their inevitable differences, we would all fight together for a better life for everyone.

Only through community, communication, compassion, and the ACCEPTANCE of the inevitable fact of our nature that we are all going to eventually die can we accept ourselves as we are, which leads to commonality, self-esteem, empathy, sympathy, belonging, peace, justice, and fairness. Religion wants you to accept a contrived sense of debt that humankind always seems to owe. As long as humankind looks through those imposed blinders they will never be free. There is no shame or disgrace in dying and we are not flawed because we do. We are not born in sin, we are born human, we act human, and we will remain human until the day we die.