A discussed previously, there seems to be a universal social apprehension in the idea of a meta-physics. It seems that every society, primative or sophisticated, adhears to some form of Deity belief. Every age and society has its detractors and atheists, but as a general rule, belief in some form of God seems universal.
So it would seem either an inate aspect of the human mind to believe in God, or just maybe a universal apprehension of something real. This essay touches a bit more on the first idea.
What if faith is an evolutionary trait aquired by humans in order to form functioning societies?
It's interesting to me that ancient comedies are still funny today. It's interesting, because comedy is often very subtle and peculiar to the human mind.
I don't have much experience with ancient non-Western comedies, but I remember well reading ancient Greek comedies and being struck by funny they still are today.
That tells me that the mind of humans hasn't changed much in 6000 years.
The point is that, if our perception of comedy is the same, if our minds haven't changed that much, this may explain the universality of religion, assuming we accept the idea that religion is a human fabrication.
Perhaps the social aspects of a community of believers make that society more viable than a community of atheists.
If all of reality “just is”, and there is no underlying purpose or meaning, perhaps this saps the will of a society.
What's interesting about all those different religious beliefs is that they seem to share two characteristics:
One can certainly make a good argument that these ideas are useful goals for a society.
One can equally argue that all societies perceive some aspect of a greater meta-physical reality.