Yes, well, I think religion is Universal, Dave. I'm a philosopher by nature. I don't think people can help but be religious. It's in their very fiber. Just about what is the question? I don't call this "circular reasoning", I call it careful observation of human nature.

A study of Taoism (a philosophy more than a religion) leads to this kind of broad view of things. You can see that there are just a few basic impulses and thoughts behind people's behaviour. One is...they want to believe in something...some kind of moral and ethical structure that underlies and supports their actions and renders their world comprehensible. Religion is usually an attempt to establish moral and ethical ground rules. Even atheists definitely want to establish such ground rules, they just don't want to link them to any nonhuman or superhuman agency.

John from Hull, however, was obviously talking about religion in the more conventional sense when he started this thread...church-based religion positing the existence of a God or Gods.

What do people want? That's the question. In general they want:

Air. Water. Food. Shelter. Companionship. Affection. Entertainment (fun). Love. A sense of purpose! A sense of identity! A sense of meaning! (they often look to organized religion for those last three in particular)

They find these things whatever way they can, usually prompted by the established programs of the culture they are born into.

I find looking at these things in a broad way a lot more enlightening than bitching about whether or not religion is "rubbish". It is a meaningless statement to assert that religion is rubbish, since there are about a million different varieties of religion out there.

It's more useful to look at what unites all people than to quibble over the details that divide them.