If there was a God, I think it would be appalled by human religions

Throughout history religion has been used as a means of control by those who seek worldly wealth and power. How much injustice, cruelty, and death has been dealt in the name of God?

My parents were not religious, and they never tried to influence me one way or another. From a young age I reasoned that all these competing religions purporting to be the one true path to God and salvation can't be right, so I decided none of them were.

My big existential question has always been Why and How is there Anything? If Everything can be traced to all the matter and energy released from the Big Bang, that still doesn't answer my question. I freely admit I lack the perception and intelligence to honestly answer that question with anything approching certainty.

Of course, the easy and comforting answer is God. Ever since human beings were able to contemplate their own mortality, fear of death drove the need to believe in an afterlife -- so Man created God, in his own image, of course. The certainty of that belief still prevails.

In a unverse with billions of galaxies, the conceit of mankind has been that it's all for and about us. With all our science and "genius" we have barely scratched the surface. We keep pushing the envelope of observing and testing physical reality, but how much closer are we to The Answer?

And is the How and Why as important as What we should do with the Life that we have?

To answer that question we need to turn inwards, and also to each other.

And, in my opinion, belief in God and religion is more of a roadblock than an avenue to the kind of enlightened evolution humanity so desperately needs on this beautiful planet for which we have been such terrible shepherds.