I want to address why man created God. It is a common desire for humans to wish there was something more to life than their basic day to day activities. When man created God it was to allow them to feel less alone in life and to feel as if their lives had more meaning because they were living for God. Another reason God was created was to help enforce morality and to ensure the survival of social constructs. If a believer carried out their life in a "good" and "moral" way, then they believed that they would be rewarded with eternal bliss in Heaven. If they committed immoral acts during their life, then they would be punished by being sent to hell, to face an eternity of misery. The concepts of Heaven and Hell have always been useful in scaring people into living the "moral" life, and bribing them towards the same end. The creation of Heaven is also born from the human tendency to fear death. Some people think that they need to believe in Heaven to relieve their anxiety about dying. Lastly, when God was initially created, humans did not have scientific explanations for things such as fire, thunder, rain, etc. They created a supernatural being (God) as a way to explain these phenomena.
A theory that has significance with regards to religion is meme theory. In brief, meme theory states that, in some aspects, symbols, thoughts, beliefs and concepts are acted upon in a nature similar to natural selection; some are more apt to be recognized, thought, held, or believed than others. In terms of meme theory, symbols, thoughts, beliefs and concepts are referred to as memes. Examples of memes include: the American flag, the swastika, capitalism, communism, God, Satan, Heaven, and Hell, to name a few. Religions still exists today because they are clusters of interconnected, mutually supportive memes. A prime example of the memetic nature of religion is how they act as a sort of conceptual immune system. These religions discourage their followers from using critical thinking, (as doubt is the work of the devil, and results in Hell) and encourage them to have blind faith in their teachings (as God praises faith, and it results in Heaven). These ignorant followers won't branch out to other religions or challenge any of their religion's teachings primarily because of their irrational fear of Hell, and desire for Heaven. Their religion made sure that this fear was instilled in them at a very young age by including a meme that directs believers to spread the religion to their children so as to prevent them from going to Hell. Many religions also contain memes relating to the “virtue” of spreading the faith to those who do not have it, taking advantage both the desire of the believer to get into Heaven and to save another from Hell.
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It appears that you believe that people created the idea of god because they want a reason to live and an authority to appeal to. That is an interesting idea and your belief can be supported by a casual observation of people in general and religious people in partucular. However, this is does not prove that God does not exsist. Suppose you are wrong, and there is a God. This would give people a reason to live and an authority to appeal to. That fits the observation as well; it's just a different way of looking at it.
You also mention that the idea of god was created to explain the unexplainable. Still, there is much to explain, and science has been known to be wrong (the development of the understanding of the atom, for example). Even if science could explain everything, that wouldn't prove that God doesn't exsist. Science explains how the universe works; not metaphysics.
As for memes, I don't understand your point; please clarify it. I think you said that religions exsist because they consist of ideas that people naturally want to believe? So, if a meme is no good it will naturally fade into the background?
As for religions discouraging their followers from thinking, that is true for some and false for some. Take medevil Catholisism. The people went to church, did what the church said, answered to the church, and (since they couldn't read) had no way of questioning the practices of the church (except for a few "reformers" who were promptly executed). That's a religion that discourages thinking. On the other hand, take the protestants of 17th century America. They encouraged thought so much that they built schools to teach people to read so they could study the Bible and not rely on the church to tell them what it says. Also, the goal of Buddism is to reach enlightenment, agnostics (by definition) question everything. Those are religions that encourage thinking.
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