You could answer that for yourself.
You're too now, present day centric. The vast majority of human existence has been lived in an uniformed state, an instinctive existence at best.
In the formative age of humanity we had at best a fundamental grasp of science, in an instinctive sense. Long, thin, straight sticks with sharp points where better at killing animals than beating them with dandelions. A fire could be made by rubbing two sticks or striking flint, without knowing the principles. It was science in its infancy. So science could not of itself build social cohesion.
Religion grew from some tiny awakening of abstract thought, probably well before our latest environmental stage, Homo sapien sapien. Now the argument might then go, was it us who invented it or did we tap into some other-worldliness and simply become aware of it?
Either way it makes no difference because it's a done deal. Religion was born on an abstract thought and grew into formalised social contacts that collectively we worked for and the pay off was the societies we live in today. Even the foundations for scientific though were enabled by religion which caused the agricultural revolution.
The next question might be, did religion just get lucky to be the force to build culture and society, the city state which led to nationhood, or was it meant to happen?
Now today when we have powered ahead with science and the predominant religions in this world come from 1,500 to 4,000 years ago, your question becomes really valid.
A real religion, if religion is real in the first place, should be able to stand up to any scientific scrutiny. It should be both rational and fearless in its quest for the truth. It should encourage the individual to seek out their own truths without fear of reprisals for not toeing the orthodox line. Superstition and dogma have no place in religion and religion should bow to science regarding all those questions best answered by science.
But then there are those other pesky questions, the big ones, that science will never answer and religion can't really answer either, but does offer at least a vague more soul satisfying answer.
So why religion, because it built the world we live in, its moral, cultural, political, societal foundations were laid by religious beliefs that bound disparate groups up into cohesive bodies working for a common cause. Today those religions have fallen far back from the disclosures of this modern scientific world, but that does not mean that a new religion is incapable of embracing modernity and the knowledge of science in a singular expression of truth.
Expand
