What is the evolutionary advantage to religion?

in my opinion as our species evolved out in the african savanas we began to evolve our sense of reason and understanding... this allowed us to be creative but it also gave us the grim understanding of death.
every animal fears death but homosaipians know that it is comming and because of that we creat ways of comforting ourselves... so religion is a way for us to avoid that double bladed evolution. thats generaly why you see athiests becoming religious when they get into their old age.
and because i belive that i don't mind it when religious people belive in religion because we are cognitive misers; therefor, if it stresses us to think of it we find a way to avoid it (another evolutionary benifit and flaw)and if this didn't answer your question then i didn't read it right :'(

errr ya many things that we evolved actualy bite us in the ass but hey what can you do about it... every positive is balanced with a negative... so quite ur bitching control is good to a certain degree, till the absoulute power corrupts absolutly.

i don't consider religion as something to restrain our rights... it only developed into that.
religion is our ancestor's attempts at explaining something... were they stupid... well, yes only because they did not have the education we have ,but they sure as hell have the same capacity for lerning as we do.

OHH someone touched on group bonds ^_^.
thor i like you explanation on how religion helps to keep us united by giving us a common goal to strive for.but each of our attempts to explain the evolutionary advantage of religions are just peices. the evolution of the ability to creat religion (rather than just evolving religion) does more than just allow us to group together... nor does it just let us stay oblivious to death.
it does both... it functions in multiple ways... like the penis the penis acts like a sperm displacement device as well as a fertilizing tool. manny things that we evolved are intricatly connected to maximize our survival abilities.so take these opinions (or some of em) and link them together and you have your answer.

you said "But is this really a survival trait of religion - the ability to wage world wars?"
so religion lets us kill eachother... well know it does but religion was not developed for that sole purpose.
look at christianity a man is only allowed to have one woman. that can be tied to our aggressive behavior. for instance (in my opinion) we evolved on the african savana and because of that we did not have a stable niche... in order to survive with this unstable niche we needed a vast gene pool ;however, the females (forgot the name for the females) control who they mate with because of this if the majority of females liked a certain trait then that trait will pass on. but because males are so dominant and aggressive the males created ways to "share the wealth". religion helps to make our populations diverse. but because religions also cause us to group together the males tend to still be dominant and because of that groups form and WAR!!
so yes religion does also creat war but thats not the reason why we were able to survive, religion helped to creat restraints for females so the males wouldn't have huge blood baths for em.there's my rant.

ya people are ALWAYS offended from what i say about sexes. I mean no offence by it and i tend to never word it right... can never win for losing... but still WE ARE SEXIST how long have females been considered "inferior" and still do in some areas? and part of the reason is because the religion choeses/promotes it. Thats just my opinion.but there are lots of influences for our sexual behaviours.

like i have ranted... at least i thing i ranted it... Humans evolved on the african savana were we were being eaten by almost everything... because of that our niche that we held was not very stable so a small change could whipe out our species... hell they almost did die. now when you look at a herd of Elk there is one male and a bunch of females, these females were attracted to this one male so this alpha-male's genes will go onto the next generation... a lot of his genes... but this is only because the Elk has a hold of a stable niche so they don't wave to wory much about change.
so to connect this to humans, because our niche is unstable the only way we could survive is to have a diverse gene pool. Now the females of our species are attracted to certain kinds of genes and not others so these undesirable genes will not be able to go on... but they have. this is because, like i said before, males are dominant and aggressive and try to find ways to control the females to they can pass their genes on... that is where sexism came from. males, trying to pass their genes on but they are unable to because they posess "undisired genes", had to find a way to pass them on so they developed sexism... i know this may sound mean but hey i don't consider our species to be all nice and friendly.
this ties to religion because some religions have formed ways to "control" females.so i hope that answered your question... i coulda swore i typed this out... like 3 or 5 times.

i think what RAZD wants is more oppinions on people's belifes rather than people tearing at something someone said wrong; like me i've told my opinion and decided to put it all together in one post... so give your opinion on the matter and challange mine... i want mine to be challanged so it can become stronger.but all belifes have some reason for being created. each are similar in their own way that is derived from what i was ranting... or at elast i think.

well i gess you just wraped up what most people are posting here... most cause there was some off topic stuff.but ya i kinda agree with some of it... the only stuff i don't agree with is your lazyness to not type out everything all big and fancy like me >_>
but oh well shortcuts are easy and fast.
but fortunatly for you, i don't tear apart everything you say but then again thats how you get people to reply.

don't worry i don't feel like doing annything else besides general stuff... unless i need to detaily explain stuff.now we just wait for someone to come in and share their opinion... either that or this is finished and I RULE TEH WORLD >_<

people like to follow... mainly because we are cognitive misers... and because of that we almost cry out for a leader. we do not nessasaraly need a leader it's just our groups that we fourm are very strong (when their small) till that group loses it's common goal that holds it together... maybe that thriving for that goal is another peice in how religions are formed, because in most religions there is some payment/reward for your good deeds/efforts... maybe in "annotehr life" but it is none the less produces a goal.just thought i'd add this... takes time to come up with these... don't really feel like doing a big wrap up, DO NOT STEAL THIS AND CLAIM IT FOR YOUR SELF YOU MOOCHERS >_<