Answers

Religion and its practice have been the question. The book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari provided the answers. He calls religion "our greatest invention", made possible by human beings' ability to believe in fiction. Religions give stability to human institutions like marriage and nationhood. Our belief in religion makes it possible to maintain social order.

Here, religion can be anything from Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam to Nazism and Communism. They are all essentially belief systems some of which are based on superhuman laws while others like Nazism and communism on natural laws of natural selection and economics.

Religions based on superhuman laws preach - the existence of an unseen God, heaven, hell, and most importantly fear. Fear of punishment after death, in the next life, karma cycle, and innumerable baseless superstitions. And many of us willingly believe in all of it, bind ourselves to moral codes, and live our lives in constant fear.

“You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.” (Harari)

Because monkeys do not believe in fiction. But humans do.

We are super strange beings with a fantastic capacity to believe and act in contradictions. We believe in an 'omnipotent and benevolent' God, the saviour and somehow defend 'Him' ourselves when suffering knocks at us.

Human beings!