Why do people practice religion and what is the psychology behind it?

2.  Some people are distrustful of people as they have
encountered people cheating and committing fraud.
 So in order to get some mental peace that God will look after
them and make their life successful, they start worshipping
god.
Distrust

3. Group mentality.
 As family, friends and neighbours practice the ritual
behaviour around a person, it can create a kind of
pressure from society to practice similar traditions and
collective worship

4. Transactional worship
 People who suffer from financial, emotional and career
pressures can worship god as a form of transactional
worship where people may provide money in exchange for
attaining their goals.

5. Familiarity and stability
 Since people have been exposed since childhood about the
traditions of god worship.
 Following the traditions provides the perception of
familiarity and stability which people would like to have
in uncertain times

6.  The society may depend on nature and natural
phenomena like the weather which can be uncertain.
 Praying to the gods and hoping that nature would be
more kind can make the people feel better and more
hopeful.
 They may also try to explain the natural phenomena
through stories about gods.
Nature

7. Dependent personality
 People of a dependent personality may depend on god
worship hoping for miracles which can make them feel
more secure.
 This can be a vicious cycle of making them more
dependent on God and messengers of god.
 This can be seen in people who have suffered from abuse
in the past.
 This can also make people feel happier by knowing that
wrongdoing would get punished sooner or later by god’s
miracles.

8. Back-to-the-wall approach
 People may feel threatened by other religions.
 They may feel other religions would start spreading among
people and more people would start following the other
religion which may cause a change in the culture of
society.
 They may feel that they would be under threat of
persecution and that their religion would soon disappear.
 This may make them more fanatical at observing the
traditions of their religion and increase their contempt of
other religions.

9.  People may celebrate festivals and worship gods as a way
of getting together with family, having meals with them
and exchanging gossip and to have a fun time in general.
Celebration

10. Self-monitoring
 People can follow religion as a form of self-control
especially when people live together in large groups.
 This can help in more self-monitoring and increasing
cooperation between people and less risk of infighting by
making people mindful of an ever watchful God who can
punish or reward people who act in a certain way.

11. Conmen
 People may follow religion as a way to con people of their
money and property and avoid paying tax on the
donations.
 They can then use this money to bribe politicians and
make government policies that would make them richer.