Why Religion Exists

I've been reading Dawkins lately and he's talking about why religion exists from a Darwinian perspective. He says that nature doesn't allow anything that doesn't further the species so religion has to have had a reason otherwise it would have been thrown out.
I can't say that I entirely agree with that. As a higher species we can get away with things that others can't. I seriously doubt that football or spas have much to do with survival.
I saw this show on Discovery once talking about this very thing. Not in the sense of religion though, but still. They said that early on in our species we were special not necessarily because we could stand upright (though that's pretty cool), and not because we noticed things like wind, rain, death, etc... but that we were the first ones to ask 'why'. And it seems to me that without any knowledge of science or even the capacity to understand it yet, religion is a logical byproduct of such a question. Being the egocentric creatures that we are, it always seems like everything is happening directly to us. It's always about us personally. We're really very selfish that way. So there's no reason for early man not to believe that the storm came because of something he did. It's really quite simple in my mind. Now, maybe I'm simple and stupid and I just don't get it. I don't know. But when ignorant people start asking questions that they can't even hope to find answers to, there's no other answer than someone up there controlling it. And when someone dies, that same someone did it and has a plan.

Now, as the centuries grew, so did our knowledge and our social structure. And several people saw the direct benefit of continuing this farce because they saw how well it controls the masses (no pun necessarily intended). It's really that simple. Religion is for controlling people. And in these religions, God concerns himself with things that no god would truly be concerned with. Whether a girl licks another girl's pussy, or whether some celebrity is a fag or not. Funny, God doesn't mind that Brittney Spears runs all over town doing everything but taking care of her kids, but if her tongue touches another girl's, then he's gonna rip an entire city to shreds to teach her a lesson. Or bring down a couple buildings maybe. If there were a God how do we know that Katrina happened because of fags and lezbos? Maybe he was punishing a local college football team for losing, or an insurance company for charging too much, or a surgeon for killing his patient. Or maybe he was punishing the city planners for ignoring the levy situation. Of all the things for a god to concern himself with, why does he care so much where I put my tongue? He doesn't.

So I don't necessarily agree with Dawkins on this one. We asked why, and we answered it as best we could. It's really that simple. If you wan't a Darwinian answer for it, we're curious beings. Our minds need to stay active. I think that was something else that came out of my discovery special. Our minds need to stay occupied to be healthy. So maybe asking why and thinking about the answer just gave us something to do in an environment with such a lack of intellectual stimulation. It gave us something to think about while hunting, making food, building shelter, etc.

And since I only said pussy once, here it is again: Pussy.
And cock.