Steve and others see no reason for religion to exist, because of science.

I would never have said such an inane thing. If you want to characterise what you think I think I suggest you stick to copy/paste in future.

But, why have and do so many (around the world) adhere to religious belief?

Because they were told what to believe by their parents/schools/pastors. The evidence for this is that, by and large, you believe the version of religion that's prevalent in your own region, and tend to demonise the versions practised in other regions. Christians denounce Muslims, Muslims think we're all infidels, the Catholics hate the Prods and nearly everybody hates the Jews. Because they are told that to demur from that which they have been told to believe is a very bad thing which may lead to ostracism at best and death and hellfire at worst. Because religion, craftily, weaves itself intimately into the social fabric, which not only makes it difficult to get out of but also even prevents questions about its validity being raised. The fact that there are millions of believers means one thing - that millions of people have been deceived. It does not add up in the slightest to evidence that "there must be something in it."

As for the rest, you do what religion always does when confronted with solid science. You resort to the woolly, the airy-fairy, the "concepts" that you know damn well there can't be evidence for (not least because, even if the concepts themselves have any basis at all, which is highly questionable, you may have little grasp of what they actually are). Things like "consciousness" or "innate awareness" or "being human." It's no different from positing an impossible supernatural being then challenging us to show he's not there. And this search for "the meaning of life." It's just words, innit. If there is a "meaning" at all you're not going to find it by following false paths such as those inviting religious ones. The best you can hope for, and it's pretty good actually, is to make full use of the brain and five senses (you know, those things that faith requires you to circumvent?) and try to understand the world around us and study its wonderful diversity and complexity. Edification will come through the joy of knowledge and (even more) the effort to get it, not from closing your eyes, joining your hands and praising some invisible, impossible bloke who's 99.9999999999999999% certain to have had absolutely bugger all to do with it.