Hi Creatr, being born in Italy, I was forced to study the catholic religion at school, one hour a week, but a few years where I was allowed to say "no". Then it had become mandatory again. So you don't lecture me. Do not even try, you cannot.

I was lucky because , together with religion, I studied philosophy at the same school, so the priest wasn't able to brainwash me. When you know about fallacies, religion cannot harm you. Because you see what religion is.

Very simple to explain with an example:

I am the only son. And of course, when I was young, I had an imaginary brother. Why? Because I didn't had a real one. Most of orphans are having imaginary parents. This is normal in the human brain.

The same is for the Imaginary Father you call "God".

The fact you have God, which is an imaginary father, just tells me you had no father, or a useless/absent one. That's it. This is why God is hardly seen as a mother, when society gives to mother the whole task of raising the offspring: you don't need an imaginary mother. But, since in this kind of society you only have shit of fathers, most of people will just invent an imaginary father, because the real father was a shit of father.

You dream to have an imaginary father which can do everything, just because you grow under the feeling your father wasn't able to give enough to you. You dream to have an imaginary father which is everywhere, just because your actual father was never there when you needed him. And you dream to have an imaginary father which knows everything, just because you grow under the impression your father told you nothing useful.

That's is: God is just "the imaginary father I created in my mind, to take the place of the shit of father I actually had". Religion is what happens when a society has, in general, most of shitty fathers. When the influence of priests decreased, and fathers started to take care of sons in Europe, religion dropped dramatically.

Religion is just a tax you pay for having had a shit of father when young. If my sons will be into religion, I will consider this as my personal failure as a father. As it should be.