Why do they believe in the face of ,so much evidence to the contrary. I have some incite as to what I found.

Quick overview for those that don't know we spent well over 100,000 years living and dieing in a tribal society and the lat 6,000 years is merely a blink of the eye and we still have most if not all of those behaviors that helped us survival in a tribal society. One behavior that can easily be found in most males and females is the instinct to either a line or become the alpha male of the group. Being the alpha male would definitely increase you chances of surviving and replicating. Now if you can't be the alpha male the next best thing would be to be the alpha male's friend, in other words be in the leadership circle. In modern society we can scarcely find what we would think of as a true alpha male unless your friends with the president or something. I've come to the conclusion that inventing an imaginary being (an imaginary alpha male) would satisfy this evolutionary urge in the same way that a child will invent and imaginary friend if he has none to satisfy he's evolutionary urges to learn very important social skills. This would explain much of the usual explanations we see from theists like it gives me purpose, it makes me feel fulfilled, life feels better with god on my side.

Another startling discover I came across was when I was trying to figure out why almost all religions and cults had an apocalyptic ending. I found the answer on accident. I was having a discussion with a friend of mine about games he used to play in Vermont. He described one game he used to play he called the end of the world were his parents were killed and he had to fend for himself. Then it hit me. This behavioral mechanism must have evolved for just such a scenario where your tribe would have been wiped out and you escaped and fended for yourself. In case you didn't know back in the day rival tribes used to wipe each other out all the time and having a plan B would have increased you chances and surviving and replicating at a later time.

In conclusion religion can be regarded as a vestigial behavior with plenty of ego defensive mechanism kicking in to defend a previously unknown set of Marlow's hierarchy of needs.