Why can random people create religions and why do people follow them?

Question

When people create religion why do people follow it? For example, Mormonism was created by a man recently and from my understanding, it basically allowed him to marry multiple women and become rich and famous. Why do people still follow it today? As a society we have ruled out most of the questionable theories such as how the earth is flat or that the universe revolves around the Earth. However we have not gotten rid of these religions that we have created recently which just seem like ways to make money or create personal gain. Why is this?

Answer 1

There are a number of explanations for the popularity of religions, 'recent' or otherwise. An major factor is socialization and habit for people beginning when they're children, a process overseen by parents and people in authority, such as religious leaders and / or teachers. I'll use my own life-experience as an example. I grew up in an Irish Catholic family: both of my parents and all of my relatives were Irish Catholics. From as early as I can recall, I accompanied my parents to church on Sundays and religious holidays, fasted during Lent, and ate fish on Fridays. From Kindergarten through High School, I attended Catholic schools.

It's not that I wasn't aware of or didn't learn about other Faiths, it was just that within my life the Catholic Faith was the norm and living my life as a Catholic was what was expected and approved of by my family. Today I'm what is called a 'Lapsed Catholic.' I honestly miss aspects of my former relationship with the Catholic Church, but my thoughts and feelings about the Catholic Church and organized religion in general are complicated... But for many other people, they live their whole life following the teachings of the religion that their parents practiced and that their parents taught them to practice.

The broader question of why human beings embraced religious teachings that clearly don't square with reality is somewhat different. There's certainly a social element - communities of people who subscribe to the same teachings reinforce each others certainty in the 'truth' of what they have been taught to believe (this is why some religious based groups display, to one degree or another, intolerance towards the followers of other Faiths; the very existence of people who believe in something different raises doubt in whether the teachings of the religious based group in question are actually the truth).

But the fundamental reason people chose to believe in something more or less demonstrably false can be found in the extreme need of the human subconscious for a sense of security / safety. The human subconscious refuses to accept its own extinction, that is, death. Its primary goal, therefore, is survival. Leaving aside the fact that death is simply an unavoidable part of life, the subconscious craves that certainty that comes from a state of security / safety.

The problem, of course, is that we are practically never in an actual state of safety because the world is an unpredictable place. There are all manner of ways in which human beings can be seriously injured - thus threatening our life - or simply killed. From simple accidents to natural disasters to diseases to violent crime to domestic violence to man-made disasters...

The subconscious is, therefore, confronted by a problem. It craves something that reality denies it from having - the comfort that comes from being certain that one is in a state of security / safety. The solution for the subconscious is very simple. Deny actual reality and substitute an alternate 'reality' based on concepts that give the subconscious what it craves: the certainty that it exists in a state of security / safety, 'Peace of Mind' as we call it.

Although religion isn't the only potential source of a satisfying alternate 'reality', it is one of the chief sources of a sense of certainty that provides the illusion of safety / security. Most religions teach that, contrary to the seemingly random nature of the world in which we live (where 'bad' people experience good fortune and 'good' people experience terrible misfortune), there is someone in charge, namely one or more supreme beings. These supreme beings are the source of both good and bad fortune and they can be appeased through, for instance, behaving according to the rules for behavior they have laid out in their holy scriptures. Knowing what the 'rules' are to both avoiding 'punishment' and earning rewards in this life and, in particular, in some form of existence after physical death, this provides the subconscious with what it most craves - certainty that gives the illusion of security / safety.

In short, given the choice between an uncomfortable reality and a comforting illusion, human beings find the second option more attractive.