Religion must have been with humanity since they were able to ask, "Where did I come from?", and to think about it more than just being born from their mothers. I think they probably thought something along the lines of, "Where did we all come from?" Combine a seemingly unanswerable scientific and philosophic question like that with an entire race of creatures that know next to nothing of either science or philosophy, and you have the beginnings of religion. Someone is going to want to say, "Well, I know what happened...", which leads into making a really cool story that gets changed over time until it becomes a religious tradition to retell the myth. One caveman could communicate to the other, "I think the Earth was built." Then his children say, "I think the Earth was built by a person." His children say, "I think the Earth was built by a person for a reason", etc. This continues until you have the kinds of holy books we have today, where it's easy for a large group of people to find comfort, solace, or some kind of morality in a story that probably didn't happen. But it works, and it works well, especially since it seems to be human nature to invoke the magical and supernatural to explain that which cannot currently be explained. Combine that with the fact that, up until fairly recently in human history, we've been a pretty gullible lot, especially when it comes to believing our leaders and what they say is best for us, and it's not hard to make the connection between a story that is obviously fantasy, and a society that perpetuates that story for its own good (or just out of tradition).
What possible factors are there that have made the creation of religions such a universal phenomenon within humanity?
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