I think it's interesting how much time we spend pondering whether or not there is a god, and if so, which religion is 'right'.

For me, there's a much more interesting question: Why do we believe in and follow religions?

I once knew a bloke who seemed very normal. I was a bit surprised when he told me that alien scientists had, in the '70s, visited a French singer-songwriter (of such classics as 'Madam Pipi' or 'Mrs Toilet Cleaner') and motor racing journalist by the name of Claude Vorilhon (before the self-dubbed Rael moniker) and explained that humans had been created by these alien scientists just a few tens of thousands of years ago, and that he must raise millions of dollars in order to buy and island on which to build a giant spaceship port where the aliens will then land, in a few decades' time, and reveal themselves to us all (visit http://rael.org/ to learn how to become one of the thousands of Raelians donating to this ever so worthy cause).

The funny thing was that he said all this with the same glee that Christians who've just 'found god' talk about their religion.

So what I'm seeing here is that submitting to a religion seems to make people happy.

(...bear with me a minute, there is more.)

Isn't it also interesting that, throughout history, the vast majority of people (I think I can safely say probably at least 99.5%) have elected to follow the same religion as the people around them in their local society.

To put these points another way, it seems clear that the overwhealming majority of people don't appear to care what their religion is about; it makes them happy as long as they believe in something and they are part of a group who also believe in it.

Why?

Well (perhaps somewhat ironically) the theory of natural selection seems to offer a pretty good explanation.

It's not hard to imagine how people whose genes have predisposed them to believe the same as their peers and to follow the same religion as their peers, have, throughout history, been more likely to survive and to produce offspring than people whose genes have inclined them to think differently and become a social outcast.

In other words, believing in a religion (particularly one that everyone else around us also believes in) makes us feel good and helps us be part of a social group within which we can have a successful and safe life for ourselves and our kids.

It's because our ancestors were hardwired to get pleasure from living this way that they tended to survive and pass their genes on...to us, their progeny.

So if belonging to a group of fellow believers makes us happy, no matter what the religion, then religion is a good thing, right?

Is it?

Or maybe that's only part of the story.

Just because it makes us happy, that doesn't make it right (in the sense of 'correct' or 'true'.

Surely there comes a point at which the happiness caused by a religion is countered by the discomfort of knowing full well that it's complete claptrap.

For instance, in today's world, most of us have the knowledge that there are many other religions out there all claiming to be right.

Assuming that one of them is indeed 'right', and they can't all be right, then with some pretty basic maths you can work out that whichever you pick, you're far more likely to have picked a loser than a winner.

Your religion is almost certainly wrong.

You can't escape this knowledge, and it has to play on your mind, surely?

We also know that, time after time, there has been a steady stream of 'word of god' beliefs to have been overturned.

For example, most religions feature a story of creation.

But these days, have a mountain of utterly incontovertible evidence proving all of them wrong

We know, though evidence, how the world was created in the Big Bang and how life started as a few amino acids that eventually formed a self-replicating molecule or two and after a few millions of years of evolution here we are.

(The possible exception is Raelism, which exploits the 'missing link' era in the fossil record to suggest that we didn't in face evolve from monkey-men, we were created by aliens.)

Surely there's a point at which the happiness to be gained through understanding of the real world overpowers the happiness gained from religion, and it's time to abandon religion forever.

I think we're at that point today.

I know I am, anyway.

Do other people feel otherwise?

I am interested to know.