Why Does Mankind/Man NEED Religion?

I think that your professor has given you a loaded question. The appropriate query would be,

"Does mankind need religion, and if so, why?"

Since the loaded question is what you have to work with, here are some thoughts.

Think about it. Why do some people need a group of like minded believers?

Group cohesiveness. Tribal mentality....sense of belonging to something bigger than onesself.

Comfort of ritual.

Simple answers for complicated questions.

Deference to authority, without the necessity and responsibility of working through one's own personal philosophy of life.

Simple answers to questions of life and death.

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I dot't think man needs religion.Any man believing in a religion is because he was persuited in his youth by others .
My son didn't believe any religion when he was at the age of fourteen,at that time a missionary went to my home every weekend to preach him to believe in God,the missionary said if he believe and serve god he would have everlasting life,if he don't ,he'll die in less than 100 year.My son is thus became a believer of a religion.
I think most people who believe in a religion because they fear death and want to have everlasting live.

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asking if man needs religion is a very simple answer, NO. Asking if a man-driven society needs religion is a different question.

religion is an easy way to keep people from thinking in giant masses.
ignorance is bliss, knowledge is power.

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"Group cohesiveness. Tribal mentality....sense of belonging to something bigger than onesself.

Comfort of ritual.

Simple answers for complicated questions.

Deference to authority, without the necessity and responsibility of working through one's own personal philosophy of life.

Simple answers to questions of life and death."

Well, we should first redefine what religion is. The way you guys present religion is maybe a little bit simplified.
For example I am a buddhist. Buddhism is considered a kind of religion.

But, the above quoted ideas don't work where I study and practice buddhism.

There is almost no group cohesiveness and never was, at least not any better than at any kind of randomly chosen company.
Sense of belonging to something bigger than I am. Well, we all do, like it or not, belong to something bigger. If you live in NYC, you belong to something bigger, if you are a citizen of the US, you belong to something bigger, if you work for IBM, the same thing. We are all little parts of the universe and I don't think religion can add something extra to it.

Comfort of ritual. Well, if you feel comfortable brushing teeth or taking a shower, these are all rituals of our everyday life. Rituals in religion are everyday life elements of religion, nothing else. Sometimes I am too lazy to bow, but I just do it, sometimes I am too lazy to take a shower, but I just do it, it is simple actions in daily life.

Deference to authority. There is none in our school. My teacher absolutely rejects to be taken in such a way. You have to be polite to him as much as you have to be polite to a co-worker. If you are not polite, then face some harsh moments - no difference from being polite to anybody else.

One's own personal philosophy of life usually consists of mixture of all kinds of philosophies and religions making it easier to gulp down for oneself. Personal philosophy of life is usually a little private religion one has. It is impossible to separate our experience from experience of other people. We all have a lot in common. So great philosophers of past and present can help us find our own way. But ultimately, the way we find in this process is not somebody else, it is just our own life, our own experience.

Simple answers to questions of life and death. The answers sometimes are difficult in Buddhism. Sometimes they sound simple. Our life is never so simple and never so difficult as it may sound or as we may think. Neither too simple, nor too difficult. It is just reality.

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I have only posted half of the thing I guess. What I have posted may sound like anarchy and that it has nothing to do with religion. So what is it that we
practice actually, why do we meet and why do we sit still facing a wall for such a long time every day? I mean most of us sit for half an hour, so I don't know if it is such a long time. It depends on how difficult it is for you to sit still.

Well we meet to discuss and learn about Buddhist philosophy and practice sitting still (we call it zazen). Buddhist philosophy is a kind of system and although extremely complicated and confusing at first sight, when you find a good teacher, he or she will guide you through the maze of Buddhist literature and point out the main things and help you understand them. On the other hand we also meet because we practice zazen together.
Why practice zazen? Isn't philosophy enough?

This is the raison d'etre of Buddhism. This very question: Isn't thinking enough? Why sit still facing a wall?

It is a tendency of people to divide their life experience into body and mind. We spend almost all day thinking while doing things in the backround. Driving, eating, walking, shaving, even having sex, we usually think: Oh, what am I supposed to do ... Oh, what an idiot ... oh, what a boring sex... So sometimes we are so fed up with our minds that we have to do something exciting to forget about our mental world. So we play sports or take drugs or someting similar. We try to escape the mind and enter the body experience fully. What is interesting though is the fact that when we play a sport, we still think. Notice when you are about to hit a ball with a bat or catch a ball or dive into water, you don't stop thinking. But in the very moment you are about to catch or throw or hit, your body and mind are in natural, spontanous connection. And this connection feels very good, doesn't it? But more about this later.

So it seems there is something wrong with the way most people connect their mind and body. As if body and mind were separate. But they cannot be separate. They are in fact one system. So Buddha found out that the problem of most people and cause of so much suffering is this human tendency to split oneself into halves - physical and intellectual.
So Buddha noticed when sitting in zazen, that he could find the natural connection between body and mind. When he practiced zazen, it felt as if his body and mind were one thing, actually they were one thing not only as a fact, but also as Buddha's actual experience. And he noticed that there is some very subtle happiness found in this connection.

So now when people ask why Buddhists practice zazen, I would say, they do it to come back to the original, natural state of a human being. I would say that to be human is not so exstatic, sometimes it is pretty difficult, but it is not such a desparate situation, either. Tranquility of zazen cuts off the extremes of human experience and gives this experience some peace and satisfaction.

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I would like to add some more thoughts on Why people need religion.

As Buddhism is not a the kind of religion that most people imagine when they hear the word "religion", I am wondering why people need a religion at all. Why they need something like Absolute, perfect peace, The Pope, Enormous Cathedrals, stunning paintings by Michelangelo etc. Huge mosques, bows, rituals and fear.

I think all of us, no matter how materialistic we tend to be, no matter how scientific our approach to the world is, we all feel there are things unknown, things beyond the capacity of our intellect, we somehow accept the fact that we will die one day, we sometimes admit that there will be absolutely nothing after we die. We sometimes wonder why we exist at all or why anything exists for that matter.

Even scientists, physicists especially, know very well, that our knowledge of the universe is very limited and will be limited for a long time to come or maybe forever. Even modern physicists cant' agree on such issues as time and space. They come to dead end when they want to measure and prove time and space. So no wonder that even such intelligent people as Albert Einstein were not atheists.

Faith in God seems to be something that belongs to both super intelligent people as well as simpletons. Because we all , no matter how intelligent are, feel that we are limited in our minds and bodies. We feel there is something secret or hidden or something essential beyond our thinking.
So we wonder if we could connect to it. Sometimes we believe we are already connected to it, but are not fully aware of it.

So when a group of people agree there is something Huge, Absolute or Eternal, they want to do something specific to celebrate that, to cherish that, to remember that. They build a temple, decorate it, they set up an altar or a totem or something that becomes a symbol of That. And when they worry about everyday problems, they sometimes remember That, they prey, they calm down, they quiet their egos to open to something beyond the limited personal mind.

I think people can benefit from religion in a way that is benefiting universally, I mean people can help others and themselves through religion as long as they dont' forget the basic principle of humbleness before something that is beyond personal knowledge. Religion cannot be used as a weapon, it is ridiculous. Religion is something that all people share, we just don't agree on names of Gods and argue about politics and popes and morals, but the essential reason why people come up with religion is something that we all share. Muslims should tell Christians: How do you cherish It? We build mosques and we call it Allah. What do you do, guys? ANd Christians should say> We call It God and we follow the example of Jesus Christ who was very wise. We go to church and pray and are happy like that. And Moslems should reply> That is wonderful. We all believe in the same thing. We just have different habits and words.

Unfortunately most people don't understand the essential meaning or religion and fight for names, positions, argue about things that were not meant to be argued about.