Religion

Religion is a metacult that purpose is to give its followers a set of answers to metaphysical question and a role model for social behaviour.

Answers to metaphysical questions
Many people are uncomfortable with not knowing the answer to many questions that they cannot solve with immediate experiment. Questions such as: "Where was I before I was born", "Where do I go after I die", "What's above the sky", "What is the Sun made of"...

A religion is meant to bring definite answers to those questions so that people feel more comfortable with the world.

It happens that the answer provided by a religion is contradicted either by another religion, either by experience (that usually was not available at the time the religion was designed). Each religion have it's own way to deal with such issues. Revisionism, denial, exegesis...

Explaining the universe is the focus of early Eurafrican and American cults such as: Greek cosmology, Egyptian cosmology, Sumerian cosmology, Inca cosmology, Mayan cosmology, Norse cosmology

Role model
Most religion provide answers on the way one should behave in society. Either through a detailed code of laws and customs (case with Judaism), either through very generic and interpretable philosophy (case with Buddhism), or with a mix of thereof (case with Christianity).

It is worth noticing that codes of conduct elaborated in very different times and context are often extremely similar and rely on values like "honor", "virtue", "love", "work", "respect" and oppose vice such as "hypocrisy", "disregard for personal property", "idleness", "infidelity".

Some concepts though are promoted (or simply allowed) by some religion and opposed (or just disregarded) by others. Which leads to uneasiness between religious communities.

Role model function seem to be the focus of Asian cults such as Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism