I think there's something built into us - it's a cliché, I know, but that idea of a God-shaped hole that keeps us always searching for Him.
I think that "God-shaped hole" is our endless quest to know the unknown. We humans survive and thrive by our ability to understand and control our environment, rather than by our speed, or power, or stealth, etc., so that the unknown presents a big threat to us. And we fear it deeply. That fear of the unknown looms so large for us that it becomes an "all-powerful entity": one which we cannot understand and control.
Religions are
at their most base level a method of imagining that we have a way of controlling that "entity". It's the 'virgins in the volcano' phenomena. Having 'personified' that all-powerful unknown into an 'entity', we imagine that if we can somehow appease it, maybe it will not cause us harm.
This is the root of human superstition, and is where most religions begin. From that, however, it can be advanced to a much more sophisticated conceptual level that is no longer based in fear and superstition, but on our real relationship with ourselves, each other, and the world around us.
Belief can be simple - and yet, doubt can really complicate it. There are times when I've thought, "what if this is all nothing, just a human construct to make sense of the world?" and it's a scary thought. It's faith that carries me through those times. Reason can only take us so far. I think sometimes the reasoning is where all the work is at, and we work so hard at it - while faith is a gift.
It is both "just a human construct"
and something far more. Because human constructs are themselves much more than we realize.
Consider this: the universe 'thinks' through us. It becomes aware of itself, through us. It loves, through us. This is how amazing, wonderful, and powerful those "human constructs" are. Through us, the universe contemplates it's own creation, and it's own Creator. Wow! :jawdrop:
