Your website was a great source of entertainment, thanks :)
So thought I'd throw in my 2 cents because I've been thinking about the topic a lot recently.
Most of your arguments (however in the context of humour) are rather true, but only for only a stance against "religion"... rather than the aspect of a "god" existing.
So far I think religion is not stupidity, it s just a routine.... like getting up in the morning... You brush your teeth and do stuff in a certain order, except of course in this case you choose to think a certain way about 'god'. Nothing wrong with that really, considering we all have freedom to do whatever the hell we want, but I'd say it hella sux if you have to do reverse forward crunches oh 7 times a day towards a supposedly constant direction. (Minor joke, no offence meant)
The reason I'm not an atheist despite my tendency to like logic is due to the fact that atheism has its flaws too, that people really glorify science a lot. Funny thing about science is that it is still written by people. I is written in the interest of logic and truth but then maybe that s how religions were formed too? Trying to explain how things (to the best of your knowledge) work. In science s case however we generally can use statistical theory to find the probability of being wrong, which is generally a very, very small number. Religion can be disproved using scientific concepts, however god cannot. Merely because it s a concept rather than something physical; which can be observed and calculated.
I'm an engineer myself and we learn what makes the physical world tick, however we don't know everything. If you read into quantum physics you'll quickly find out that the universe is a very strange place and we've only scratched the surface in knowing what everything is made out of. Saying god doesn't exist so strongly should technically be against scientific principles because it s not in the interest of science. Scientific principle says we must always question ourselves, and try to prove the theory wrong. Clearly you have made a choice that a god doesn't exist, saying you have faith in that he (or she or IT) doesn t. Forget for a minute what all religious-types say about having experiences with god because that s irrelevant and can actually be systematically proven wrong in probably all cases. Can you say with complete confidence that after say a billion years of scientific research we definitely will not find any evidence that god exists? That s assuming quite a lot considering how little we actually know today.
Why do I choose to believe in god? Lets face it you need faith in this world. That was the concept of religion. Explaining how the universe may work and our place in it. We will never really know everything , so for everything between the cracks in what we do know, we have to have faith that the rest of it still holds up. I reserve the fact that I don t know if god does exist. So rather than being confused about certain elements like why the big bang happened and if there really is some kind of place to go after death, I choose to believe there is a god. Its not quite comforting but its a lot warmer than being cynical and considering that we may have no purpose in this universe other than to be born, evolve, mate and die.
Let me correct a few misconceptions you seem to have about me.
1) I'm not against religion per se. I am against certain religious practices that lead to intolerance or bad thinking habits, but I'm against such things when they're not related to religion, too.
2) I don't glorify science. Science can make mistakes. It's just the best means we have of discovering (or getting close to) truth.
3) I agree that we don't know everything.
4) I don't say that god doesn't exist. I say that I see no compelling reason to believe that god exists. If significant evidence appears that there is a god, I'll change my mind.
5) I agree that people must have a certain amount of faith. I just try and have as little of it as possible.
6) I don't consider myself to be cynical at all.
You're right that much of religion probably arose out of a quest for knowledge. The problem is that the quest for knowledge kept going while religion, by and large, got wrapped up with other issues. That astrology came from astronomy doesn't mean that we should necessarily respect astrology.
If you find belief in god comforting, then I have nothing against your belief. Enjoy your life. But next time you want to have a discussion about atheism, leave a real, working e-mail address, okay?
