I'll start with religion, since that's one of the most divisive and fun topics to discuss. Throughout history, i think that religion as a theology has been a placeholder for what we don't understand. First there were gods of natural phenomena like rain, harvests (the weather patterns behind them), health, etc. As we've collectively learned more and more however, religion has been delegated the task mainly of explaining the "how" and "why" of human existence and morality, which are topics we as a species have not completely come to terms with.
I feel reasonably confident that science will soon explain away the "how" part of religion. I read Stephen Hawking's most recent book that gave a fascinating view into M-Theory, the newest candidate for the theory of everything that unifies the fundamental forces of the universe. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert of it, but the gist of it was that there are 10^500 different universes out there, each with it's own number/style of dimensions. Some dont expand because of their composition of laws don't allow for it, but ours worked. And so our universe inflated, hence the big bang. Or something like that. Even if this turns out to be completely wrong, i feel confident that we will be able to explain it eventually.
Life itself (according to Hawking't TV show) seems to be a property of matter under certain conditions. This argument precludes the existence of any meaning to our existence, and thats tough to digest. However, mi amigo Ryan Frate told me once that the purpose of our lives is to give our lives a purpose. In lieu of any objective purpose to existence, subjective purpose is really all we have.
I think that if one were to take a step back and look at judeo-christian theology from an objective standpoint, its really quite obvious how ludicrous it is. All this stuff about famines, demons, plagues, miracles, a guy rising from the dead, is simply ridiculous. It reads like a JRR Tolkein novel. It's silly to take literally. Taking it metaphorically is a different ball game; i have no problem with interpreting each story as a better way to behave morally. However if one were to do this, it seems like you have to do it selectively, as Bible passages condone actions like selling family members into slavery (exodus 21:7), killing people who work on the sabbath (Exodus 35:2), etc (thank you West Wing). And if you have to interpret it selectively, why use it at all? It becomes a means of justifying actions retroactively, not a means of guiding future actions, and it becomes useless.
I also find it tiring that people assume that lacking religion is the equivalent of being immoral. It's totally possible to not have a religion and be moral. I find it insulting that people think humans are incapable of acting morally without the threat of divine retribution. It's possible. It happens literally all the time.
Later, I'll type up a part 2 of this as a history of religion. I think this will be enlightening for a lot of people as to why religion exists at all. Until then, I have an intramural volleyball game.
