I didn’t set out to prove that God doesn’t exist. My goal was simply to verify what I had always been taught about God. I was indoctrinated into Christianity from birth. Both of my grandfathers were conservative southern preachers. So I was prime multi generation Christian material.
But when I reached the age of reason I started having doubts. I realized how important it was to make the right choice because it would govern the rest of my life. And possibly for all eternity. So I set out to confirm what I had been taught.
But rather than search within the Bible as I always had, or ask a preacher, I went to outside sources. I started reading about other religions, history, cultural anthropology, sociology and psychology.
It soon became obvious that ones beliefs were a produce of their culture, their early childhood environment. Religions are learned just like the rest of one’s culture. Which explains their geographic clustering. Not only globally, but locally. The biggest predictor of one’s religious beliefs is their parents religious beliefs.
A child will believe that ever it’s taught. Especially when it’s reinforced by everything in the environment. The child is given no other choices. Religion is presented as fact and the child believes it as such. It passes from generation to generation through this informal process of socialization.
All knowledge about the gods originally comes from one of the sacred texts: the Bible, Torah or Koran. But these are all mutually exclusive and contradictory. Aside of these sacred texts there is (little or) no evidence of a god.
When you step outside of that system you begin to see religion for what it is: An accident of birth. Fate’s first offer.
There are no gods. Only religions.