Do people cling to religion for answers?

I'm not particularly religious, and I'm often puzzled why people cling to an idea in the face of evidence to the contrary or in the face of no evidence what-ever.

It drives me crazy when people say "God wants" or "God's plan is." Any being that would be so advanced as to actually deserve the name "God" would be so far beyond our human comprehension that we would understand that being no better than the common garden slug understands human thoughts and plans.

While I often take exceptions to statements made by religious people, I have to take exception to something you said, too. "Consider that evolution is accurate and when you die there is nothing." Evolution doesn't rule out God's existence, and God's existence doesn't rule out evolution. It is possible that a deity put the earth and her inhabitants into motion using exactly the mechanisms we can observe in the natural world. In other words, it isn't my job, nor yours, nor the job of the most devoted religious fanatic to tell God how to do His job.

That's why I remain agnostic leaning toward atheism. I don't know everything there is to know. I hope that there is a system of justice here-after rewarding good and punishing bad, but I don't know that such a system exists. I see no evidence of a just or even an alert God! I think the best humans can do is pay attention right here and right now on earth. I worked as a teacher for two decades because I think education is required for justice. Pretty much the best any of us can do is work for justice and peace right here where we can measure the outcome, even if our measurements are crude.

As to how we got here and what happens to us after we are dead - neither is really relevant. We ARE here. Let's live to be our best selves. The rest will take care of itself. No God that is worthy of the title would give us an intellect, and then punish us for using that intellect.

Religion comforts people because they don't like the idea of not living forever (an afterlife effectively makes you live forever). Whether there is any truth behind this concept is another matter entirely. Though what is more important, the comfort it provides to those who seek it, or the truth if there is something beyond this life or not. Some people don't wish to hold wishful thinking that after this life there is another, because it may detract from this one.

Really though, evolution has nothing to do with supernatural claims such as an afterlife. When you put it into context that we evolved out of other forms, people tend to make this association themselves, and since they don't attribute special things, such as consciousness, to other living things, they don't want to necessarily accept evolution because they then think it makes them not special either.

Religion is merely a promise, though with how no two people can ever agree 100% on religion, I think that's a major problem. Religion just attempts to answer these effectively unknowable questions that don't matter to THIS LIFE. Maybe it's better to focus on the here and now, rather than worry about death and life after death. Since this life is the only one you know for sure you have.

Only a very small percentage of those who have a religious belief do not accept evolution. The Pope accepts it and every mainstream religious thinker does so so. Disbelievers are limited to the fundamentalist churches, mainly in the USA.

Oh - and Sarah Palin, of course.

People cling to all sorts of things: God, Guns, spiritualism, consumerism etc. i suspect you're no different - you've substituted religion for something else.

Many think that when people stop believing in God, they start believing in anything.

if you were close to death wouldn't you really want to believe your going to a better place, wouldn't that kind of ease the anxiety of dyeing? especially if like 90% of your county believes its true, that along hold weight. of course 2/3 of Americans believe 9/11 and the current Iraq war are connected but that not the point.

its up to you to decide for yourself how you perceive life and value it. in my opinion religion is a way to fill the hole of unanswerable questions i also believe that life its self is incomprehensible but then again i am an agnostic-metaphysical absurdist...if you are very curious about the topic i would recommend studying philosophy and theoretical physics they both provide they most abstract and concrete views of life also absurdism is quite a fulfilling religion

I suppose when someone dies it is nice to think of an after life rather than them just rotting away and becoming worm food.