Reasons for Reassessing my Beliefs

There are much better explanations available for the man-made creation of gods and of religion, as summarized on the main page of this blog. (D-I-F-R) Death, Ignorance, Fairness, Responsibility.

The arguments fall into a couple of main (and wholly distinct) categories:

• Arguments why it's highly unlikely that god doesn't exist, independent from man dreaming him up, and
• Arguments why it's almost certain that man - when we were less evolved - created gods, and then have chosen to cling to them.

I have presented the DIFR summary below, in slightly expanded form, in no particular order...

• Implausibility of god's existence
• Lack of evidence (a wholly separate point from implausibility)
• Circular arguments of the faithful, avoidance of substantive argument by the faithful, and slipperiness in debate
• The saying "You just have to take it on faith". The self-righteous pride in willfully maintaining a state of ignorance. Why make yourself a slave, wearing 'mind-forged manacles' without a reason?
• Repetition of elements of religious myths throughout history - they all appear to be cobbled together from bits of the others. We've always invented gods; there are thousands in the history books that are no longer worshipped but used to have millions of devotees. Virgin birth, walking on water, sacrifice and resurrection - it's all been fabricated and told before, yet we're asked to take it on faith that 'this time, it's different. This time, it's true!'
• Most religions elevate the human to the highest position in the universe, which is how we would want it to be, if we had a choice. The idea is comforting to us.
• Fear of death - religion is likely (in part) a deep emotional (and in turn primal, physical) response to try to cope with/bargain with the inevitability of death
• Tremendous waste of space and amazing destruction in the universe - not much of a 'designer'.
• Childish abdication of responsibility - fundamental need of the human psyche to look for a shortcut, or give over leadership, control, or responsibility to someone else.
• Human biological tendency for pattern recognition and to find easy connections/answers - this grouping of stars is a character from a story, that shooting star means the gods are angry, the earthquake the other day means that homosexuals are condemned by my deity.
• The casual dismissal by most religions of all other faiths. 'My faith is the correct one, but yours is clearly ridiculous, dangerous, and blasphemous.'
• Most religions are inherited through family associations - passed onto children when they're still being taught about the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.
• Religions' obsessive control over human sexuality. Don't touch yourself! Don't sleep with her/him! Wait until you're married! Etc. it's almost like we're looking for a good made-up reason to tell us we >should< be ashamed our sexuality.
• Perhaps most damning of all - the ability of the 'more rational' religious apologists to admit to the validity of science and evolution, to recognize how it explains a vast continuum of experiences and facts about the natural world, but then to stubbornly insist that their religion and their God exist independently of these things, and do not need to be constrained or even affected by that continuum.