A completely different take
> 
> http://www.jcf.org/new/index.php?categoryid=37&blogid=21
> 
> > After my son died, I had no one to go with
> Hi David - my deepest sympathies
> 
> I found this closing remark of Joseph Campbell (In A Hero with a Thousand Faces) strangely comforting, a little while after my son died.
> > It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal - carries the cross of the redeemer - not in the bright moments of his tribe's great victories, but in the silences of his personal despair.-Thank you. It fits.


> I was puzzled yesterday at your comment here; I think you're attacking my usage of the word 'worship.' Having never had a 'religious experience' I can only venture to geuss, but my point here was to draw the connection that people who claim to regularly experience these experiences invariably identify themselves as very religious, thus they worship regularly; Whereas the word 'worship' for me is a verb that can be done by onesself wherever they happen to be.-I guess it is word confusion. I pray in private and worship in Temple, the latter not in 5 years. After my son died, I had no one to go with, as I don't have a membership. Jeews are strange.

Dhw,
> > The clip is properly attributed to Satyansh, and I hope as you do that in the long run things work out.
> > 
> > I would like to explore the idea you proposed about humans being programmed for religion. They have demonstrated that there is a part of the human brain, and for people who suffer a particular form of epilepsy--they are compelled to worship, regardless of their religion. This religious center is hyperactive.
> 
> 
> The interpretation of the effect of the 'religion area' in the temporal lobe, the 'God module' is different than your statement. The epileptic attacks cause a religious 'experience', which doesn't automatically send them rushing off to church.-I was puzzled yesterday at your comment here; I think you're attacking my usage of the word 'worship.' Having never had a 'religious experience' I can only venture to geuss, but my point here was to draw the connection that people who claim to regularly experience these experiences invariably identify themselves as very religious, thus they worship regularly; Whereas the word 'worship' for me is a verb that can be done by onesself wherever they happen to be.


> > 
> > The interpretation of the effect of the 'religion area' in the temporal lobe, the 'God module' is different than your statement. The epileptic attacks cause a religious 'experience', which doesn't automatically send them rushing off to church.
> 
> Except that all of those affected in Ramachandran's study all identified themselves as 'deeply religious.'-That is true

Dhw,
> > The clip is properly attributed to Satyansh, and I hope as you do that in the long run things work out.
> > 
> > I would like to explore the idea you proposed about humans being programmed for religion. They have demonstrated that there is a part of the human brain, and for people who suffer a particular form of epilepsy--they are compelled to worship, regardless of their religion. This religious center is hyperactive.
> 
> 
> The interpretation of the effect of the 'religion area' in the temporal lobe, the 'God module' is different than your statement. The epileptic attacks cause a religious 'experience', which doesn't automatically send them rushing off to church.-Except that all of those affected in Ramachandran's study all identified themselves as 'deeply religious.'

Dhw,
> The clip is properly attributed to Satyansh, and I hope as you do that in the long run things work out.
> 
> I would like to explore the idea you proposed about humans being programmed for religion. They have demonstrated that there is a part of the human brain, and for people who suffer a particular form of epilepsy--they are compelled to worship, regardless of their religion. This religious center is hyperactive.-
The interpretation of the effect of the 'religion area' in the temporal lobe, the 'God module' is different than your statement. The epileptic attacks cause a religious 'experience', which doesn't automatically send them rushing off to church.

A new study finds that making friends in congregations is the major factor:
> 
> 
> http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-12-reveals-secret-ingredient-religion-people.html-Without a doubt. -In a more practical manner, though I'm only 31, I've often found myself asking the question of, "Who will take care of me when my wife and (future) kids are gone?" The typical social structure in America is such that, if you are religion-less, you are going to have a tough time solving these issues, as they're historically done by your friends in the congregation; I witnessed it when I was a kid, and the power of mere association by congregation is an important tribal kind of thing. I don't know how to solve that problem individually, or as religion in America continues to mirror Europe, as a society. There's a social compulsion in the congregation, that I do not know how to otherwise recreate. -That last sentence is spoken, because as an adult--I've never met so many people that are atheists/agnostics. There's something unique about my generation that seems quite willing to "give up the ghost," as it were.

This doesn't really answer why religion has the hold it does.
> People also get happiness from other community activities,
> such as supporting football clubs, or even local humanist groups.
> I don't believe there is any inherent need to believe in gods.
> I've certainly never detected any tendency for that in myself.
> In fact I would say I have an inherent liking for natural explanations.-Football and other clubs filled a social need for me, but I can not say that they ever scratched the particular itch I have that spirituality does. And contrary to other popular beliefs, for me at least, it has nothing to do with being afraid of death or the unknown, or the need for a non-naturalistic explanation for events. When science makes sense, I have no problem excepting their explanations for things. However, when they start touting things like quantum fluctuations literally created something for nothing, I just want to reach across and slap them while asking what created the quantum fluctuations, or designed the system that allowed those quantum fluctuations to happen in the first place. Some may think me unreasonable, irrational, or illogical, but to me, saying that I observe too much organization for it all to be random chance is not illogical, or irrational at all.

There has always been a community motive for religion, and that same community has always been a source of contention between two congregations of disparate thoughts. What I am more curious about is why so many people have felt the need for a god to begin with. Based of its pervasiveness and archaeological evidence we can assume that the vast majority of all humans who ever lived had at least some notion of God, despite vast differences in culture, and vast geological separation.-The exact point made by Karen Armstrong in her book, "A History of God'. She thought we were programmed to be religious.