Does God exist: A hopefully civil and fruitful debate

It's right in the Religion wiki under "Origins and development"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion

One important way in which religious beliefs accomplish this is by providing a set of ideas about how and why the world is put together that allows people to accommodate anxieties and deal with misfortune

also, didn't the guy who started scientology do it to get rich? Not to mention this stuff which is actually pretty hilarious http://www.cracked.com/article_18885_5-p...-laid.html