Religion

I don't believe in religion. I don't believe in anything supernatural.
To be completely insensitive, how can people believe in hocus pocus that has never been seen or proven? How can they believe so hard that they build their whole lives around it?
We have all the answers. Well, maybe not concrete answers about things like where did we come from, but we have way more evidence for evolution and the big bang theory than we do of god. We have exactly 0 pieces of evidence of god. We actually have evidence against religious beliefs: they don't fit into anything we know about reality. God does not make scientific sense.

I used to think I'd never understand how people can believe in something so ridiculous, but now I think I do. I believe it's fear and loss. We are so scared of what happens when we die, so believing that you will continue in heaven is such a relief that you hold on to it for dear life. Death is the ultimate horror, if you put a gun to my head you bet this devote agnostic would probably start praying. Religion is a powerful coping mechanism.
And it is useful for loss as well. I've never lost anyone close to me except for one family dog. She died 3 years ago, and it was very sudden (heart attack at just 9 years old). I was such a sobbing and heartbroken mess that when my dear teacher was comforting me with "she's in heaven, a better place, running and chasing sticks" I wanted to believe her with all my heart. I think I did let myself believe for a moment, just to ease the pain. So I can't imagine the pain of losing a person, I think that would be far more than enough to make someone believe in an afterlife. We can't deal with death, even if it's not our own.

My father and I don't believe in anything, but my mother is a little bit superstitious. She likes to read stories about "miracles" and buy books that I think are psychic shams. When we talk about religion she get's incredibly fed up with me, and always ends up yelling "yOu nEed tO kEep aN oPeN mInD!" when she can't seem to defend any other point. That's alright, we can agree to disagree.

What do I think happens when we die? I think death is exactly what it looks like. My dead dog's corpse on the living room floor, or brain matter spilled from a skull on the freeway. Gone, a sack of flesh and bones. A person ceases to exist just as they did before they were born. All we are is matter and signals in our brains, our personalities hold no greater weight and we are arrogant to think that they do. The thought of nonexistence is almost too much for our minds to fathom, and that is was you call an evolutionary adaption. Our fear of death is what pushes us to survive, and religion is a coping mechanism born from that very adaption.