Many religions seem to see pain, suffering and sacrifice as a necessary part of testing and strengthening their beliefs, towards ultimate redemption. Followers of some religions, for instance, inflict severe pain on themselves and impose rules that create emotional and physical conflict within the individual (e.g. celibacy). Most religions have practices that I feel originate from a bygone age when human beings' knowledge of natural phenomena was in its infancy and offerings were made in an effort to appease the gods and ward off natural catastrophic events.
I appreciate how and why these rites and practices might have evolved over time and become mixed up with real people and events to form a religion. But I find it difficult to understand how, in this day and age, people continue to perform these rites - for example, float food out onto the sea as an offering to the gods, cover their hair with wigs or scarves, prohibit certain foods or declare certain behaviours as emanating from "the devil".
Of course, science certainly doesn't have all the answers and there are still a million things we don't understand - probably the most challenging being why are we here? Despite this, I find it difficult to understand
why some people are able to fill that that vacuum of unknowingness with a religious belief.
However, I respect the right of people to have these beliefs - provided they don't present them as matters of fact rather than matters of faith, don't assume that their faith makes them intellectually or morally superior and don't seek to impose their particular religion on anyone else.
