Why is human embrace of religion universal?
E. O. Wilson said something in this regard, which I thought worthy of sharing:
The highest forms of religious practice, when examined more closely, can be seen to confer biological advantage. Above all they congeal identity. In the midst of the chaotic and potentially disorienting experiences each person undergoes daily, religion classifies him, provides him with unquestioned membership in a group claiming great powers, and by this means gives him a driving purpose in life compatible with his self-interest. His strength is the strength of the group, his guide the sacred covenant. The theologian and sociologist Hans J. Mol has aptly termed this key process the "sacralization of identity." The mind is predisposed - one can speculate that learning rules are physiologically programmed - to participate in a few processes of sacralization which in combination generate the institutions of organized religion.