This follows up on the suggestion in
Message 22.
What is the value of religion, in the sense of its social role within society? And what is the value of religion to an individual?
The question arises from the observation that many different societies have religions. Apparently religions tend to evolve, in the sense of cultural evolution. This suggests that religion brings some sort of value to societies.
Many people are troubled by fundamentalism. In order to better understand it, we would need to know something about what brings people to fundamentalist religions.
This is not a question about any particular religion, although answers might be different for different religions. This is intended as a science topic, not a faith topic, although the scientific issues might mainly concern the social sciences.
Answers such as "to save your soul" are not welcome in this thread. A different thread could be proposed for that if anyone thinks it is appropriate.
I suggest
Creation/Evolution Miscellany for this.