Religion

Written several years ago, but not published until today.

Having finished my reading of the Bible (all of it), the time has come to once again attempt to I have come to believe that religion is man-made, humans' search for meaning about the deepest questions.   Where do we come from, and where do we go when we die? Are we alone, or is there a higher power that is somehow in charge? How did all this come to be? Was the universe created, or was it always thus? If created, what came before? What created the creator?  

These questions are intriguing, but unanswerable. Such an entity as the Creator (if it exists at all) is unknowable to humans. It would be too vast and totally different from anything we could understand. 

Applying reasoning (which perhaps is a mistake when dealing with this question),  it is hard to even think about a creator. I'm willing to concede that there may have been a creator, but that would have to be an entity with no beginning or end, which itself was not created but had the omniscient power to create the universe.  

But would that be an entity with the qualities described in scripture: loving and watching over everyone; judging human behavior and sending us to our reward or damnation; sending his son to Earth and then bringing him back to Heaven, to later return and save the faithful and send the damned down to Hell; reincarnating souls to a higher or lower level (as in Eastern religion); requiring that we follow the Ten Commandments, attend church or temple, take communion, eat no meat (again, as in Eastern religion), eat only kosher food, wear clothes with tassels, circumcise men, obey prescribed behavior towards a spouse, and so much more. 

What then is religion? Where did it come from? It seems to me that religion was created by humans. I think religious doctrine evolved in to explain the unexplainable. order society and show us how to live a good, virtuous life. But as an origin story, it doesn't work for me.