Well, as an atheist I don´t think that religions would be absolute necessity. But I can understand the need for it and I think there are a million reasons for people to believe. And we do not know the truth.
Altough it seemes that when we think of religion, immediatly the word christianity pops into our mind. There are other religions out there as well... and even though we ofcourse understand that as a fact, I don´t think we knowledge it in emotional level. Islam is quite similar to christianity (after all, both worship the same God), but for example buddhism and hinduism are quite different from christianity.
The religion in which we have been raised and in which we have lived most of our life is, to us, all the religions of the world.
But to the point... The human heart!
Humanity has always been accused from so much... and thanked from so little... humanity is a very cruel critic for itself.
When we achieve something good, we thank God(s), higher spirits etc. but when we fail we rarely say "the devil made me do it".
I don´t think we admire ourselves enough... of our potential, of what capacity we have and how unique species we are on this planet. Some say "Yeah, we´re really unique, the only species that is its own worst enemy" etc.
Many of us look humanity is a failure, a cancer to this planet... evil and sinful from the beginning of time.
But wars, religious battles, ideological attrocities etc. were bound to happen. I´m sure that almost every single sentient species in the universe has had wars and attrocities.
When we have this kind of potential to understand such complex things and to build civilizations... there will almost certainly also be friction and conflicts.
Perhaps we are gotten too used to this. Consciousness, understanding, emotions, our body feel so common to us. We have lived in this body and in/with these brains for our whole life... we cannot imagine how a bird thinks or a dog, but we know ourselves (atleast some of us
) and we cannot appriciate that what we already have.
Ofcourse I can preach in here and say that we are wonderful beings, and we may understand it... but can we feel it? No, because we have gotten used to these feelings and thoughts.