You are correct to say that my essay did not prove that God does not exist. It was meant to be my thoughts on why he was created, nothing more. However, your idea that God's existence also fits into these observations is a weaker theory and requires more assumptions.
To address your second paragraph, the goal of science is not to find absolute truth, but to provide the most reasonable explanation using logic and reason. The idea of God goes against what we have learned from science. This is evident as many religions constantly have to change their definition of God and what he does. Most Christian religions no longer use the literal interpretation of the Bible, as it is incompatible with modern science. Also, please explain to me how the "development of the understanding of the atom" was wrong. As far as I have heard there was a vague model which, over time, became more and more specific.
Meme theory indicates that religion is composed of ideas that have appeal to certain aspects of human psychology; this explains why religion is so prevalent, despite it's illogicality. You are basically correct in saying "if a meme is no good it will naturally fade into the background," because a meme that is not likely to be thought will fade because it is not prone to be thought or passed on.
I am curious, in your fourth paragraph are you referring to the open-minded protestants that burned witches? The same protestants that had a theocracy in America? The protestants that were far worse than the religious intolerance they came to America to escape? Or are you referring to the other protestants: the ones that don't exist? The schools you mention taught the Bible and I highly doubt that they encouraged students to think about the possibility that the Bible was not historically accurate. The point of these schools was to teach the Bible, not critical thinking, tolerance, or open-mindedness. I would also disagree with you that Buddhism is a religion. Buddhism is a philosophy. It encourages critical thinking, debate, and acceptance. Buddha is not their God, he is their teacher, their guide, and their role model. In addition, I hope that you are not confusing the state of enlightenment with Heaven. Enlightenment is more of a state of mind - an enlightened one is liberated from the cycle of rebirth. Further proof that Buddhism is not a religion lies in the fact that Buddhists are often Atheists. Agnosticism is also a philosophy, not a religion, as Agnostics will say that they can't know if there is a god or not.
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You are correct; the goal of science is not to find absolute truth. Personally, I do not believe absolute truth can be proven, therefore science will never find absolute truth. I think of science as a method of testing what may be a truth. I thought of the model of the atom. For a while we had the "plum-pudding" model (disproven by bombarding an atom with alpha rays). The "truth" was presented, and eventually, a test showed that it was not true. We've also had the solar system model, and more recently, the electron cloud model. Each model was believed to be a "truth" for a time, and at least two of them are no longer regarded in that way (as far as I know, the cloud model still stands). However, since science has disproven other atomic models, I have no reason to believe that science will not eventually disprove the model that is currently accepted.
You mentioned that religion is illogical. Please give an example of this in Biblical Christianity. (I can think of several examples in many different religions. Yes, some are in Biblical Christianity, but I'm interested to see what you come up with.)
As for this business about Protestants, I never claimed that they are open-minded. Still, I don't believe that they burned the so-called witches because they were close-minded, rather, because they were afraid. (You could argue that fear is simply a natural result of a choice to be close-minded, but it's not the only result of that choice.) History is full of examples of people acting in fear without regard to the consequences: the Salem witch hunts, the internment camps for the Japanese, the scene in the Superdome shortly after hurricane Katrina, any interregation involving torture, the list goes on. Fear isn't a protestant thing, it's a human thing.
Also, early America wasn't a theocracy. The laws were made and enforced by the people, not God. Because it was a democracy, the people made their own laws, and since the vast majority of them were Christians, they tended to base many of their laws on the Bible. When someone broke a law, however, he or she answered to the people.
Again you speak some truth, although you cleverly inserted your opinion. The protestants that fled Europe because of religious persecution did turn right around an persecute their fellow Christians and non-Christians alike. Whether it was worse or better is a matter of opinion, but either way, it was rather hypocritical of them.
Yes, I'm quite confident that the early American schools did not encourage students to think about the possibility that the Bible was not historically accurate, but they did teach critical thinking. I recommend that you look into the New England Primers. Yes, they teach the Bible, but the did encourage critical thinking about Biblical passages and asked students to make connections between different ideas. Even if you believe the Bible is completely fiction, connecting ideas in a book of fiction is still critical thought. As for tolerance and open-mindedness, if you believe that the Bible is intolerant and closed to new ideas, obviously you'd think that teaching the Bible produces intolerant closed-minded people.
I have a question for you. Is it reasonable to judge a philosophy by its abuse? If a drill chart calls for a marching band to march in a particular way, but the members of the band do not follow the chart, is it reasonable to then assume that it was a bad chart?
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