The answers are pretty simple. 1: People are more comfortable with death if they know where they are going when they die. 2: It gives people a purpose in life, instead of being alone in the universe.

I think any non-retarded person can figure out that God didn't just snap his fingers and bam there is life. If that is true than please God give me a damn McLaren F1 GT already, if I was God I'd take bribes. But back to the point. I would say one of the scariest things on earth is the unknown because if you think about it, you have no idea what will happen which renders you totally out of control, and people like to be in control. Death is the biggest unknown there is, I don't care what you believe but you do not know 100% what will happen when you die. It is fundamentally impossible to know for absolute what will happen, no matter what someone tells you or how much you believe them there is always that chance they are lying or are miss-guided into believing something happened that never actually took place.

For example: Say that person A died and was brought back to life, and while that person died they saw what the afterlife was really like. Now that person tells person B what he/she saw and it was 100% absolutely true. Person A does not know for 100% absolutely true what happens when they die because they did not experience and they do not know 100% that person A was telling the truth. Many people exaggerate when re-telling story's and more often than not it is to make the story more exciting.

One of the big questions in life is what is the individuals purpose, why are we here. Which is a valid question in itself, one I do not believe can be answered. In general, people like to be told what to do, which requires very little thinking on the persons part. (I myself never like to lead when walking in a group or with someone because if I’m just mindlessly following someone I don't have to think about where I’m going I can just sit there and observe or get lost in thought or just be mindless, hah). Religion gives someone purpose, they have a reason for living that reason being to serve God. Many people use that purpose for good, like helping third world countries. While others use it to make people serve them because they are self-proclaimed prophets of God, *Cough the Pope Cough*.

-Matt Last

P.S. As an individual each case is different so I am speaking in generals, while there are many more reasons why people join religions. Sometimes it's the law, other times people feel guilty if they don't. Etc. I just touched on two major ones. Also this is all just my opinion and in no way is fact, (Many people confuse fact with opinion).