What is religion?

[Majed]

What is religion ?
‎Mental constructions.
‎A mental construction, is the ability to shape reality using our collective minds, giving birth to a new meaning within it.
‎For example, we construct, we invent, a holy book, we obscure its true original history, we make it into the sacred word of God, and indoctrinate children brainwashing them with this concept and perception since their youngest years.
‎This is one construct within religion, now religion is an amalgamation of mental constructions, which really serve a function of survival, it creates a community, a sense of meaning and purpose, holidays, a collective identity, a culture... So what's the problem with religion then ? The problem is that it isn't truth by any means. In fact it is the polar opposite of truth. That's why truth requires questioning and deconstruction. Which is why questioning religion in religious circles and communities is so taboo. Because the religion isn't based on truth or facts, but on a bunch of mental, social, fictional constructions which only exist in the minds of the people inside the religion: a shared, collective hallucination in other words. What i am describing is construct awareness. To be aware of mental constructions, fictions, illusions, and hallucinations.
‎Now why is there thousands of religion in the world today and across history ?
‎Precisely because religion is invented, a construct. If religion was true there wouldn't be thousands of religions for obvious reasons. Religion is pretty much cultural as well, notice that people in different geographical locations have different religions. Now, if religion is obviously false, why religious people are so unwilling to drop it?
‎Because it's their entire way of life, in a sense religion is like a map, to make sense of the world, without it they're lost, they wouldn't know how to live. It's easy to live life when you have a bunch of guidlines on everything and how you should do it: eat kosher, go to the synagogue of shabbat, do your 3 daily prayers... It structures your life, without it, you need to rethink everything from scratch which is the most difficult work nobody wants to do.

[enchanted]

Yes you have some good points but you have left out the steelman version of religion: it's sense making, community building, an attempted at explaining the cosmos. These things are needed for society to exist. 

Religion is similar to money in that it's a complete fiction and belief BUT it plays a very important role and makes society possible. 

Can societies exist without a grand meta narrative? That is yet to be seen and some secular societies are trying it out for the first time in human history.