A SHORT HISTORY OF GOD (by Bill Flavell)
Here is a list of things we are pretty confident actually happened.
13.8 billion years ago
A minute, enormously-hot, speck began to expand. As it cooled down, it formed electrons and neutrons, then helium and hydrogen, then stars and galaxies and finally higher elements and planets.
~4.5 billion years ago
On the outer edge of a galaxy, a new star was born orbited by eight planets. One of those planets we now inhabit.
~3.5 billion years ago
A simple self-replicating cell formed that survived well enough for a large population to form. Over the course of hundreds of billions of generations, these cells changed and became more complex.
~600 million years ago
Some cells joined into a multi-celled organism and successfully reproduced.
~200 million years ago
The first mammals evolved from reptiles known as synapsids.
~65 million years ago
A large asteroid crashed into Earth causing the extinction of ~75% of species, including dinosaurs, the then dominant life form. This left a gap that allowed mammals to thrive.
~240,000 years ago
Homo sapiens evolved in East Africa from a line of hominid species stretching back ~6,000,000 years. Humans born today are genetically almost identical to these first sapiens.
~ 40,000 years ago (perhaps much earlier)
Humans invented the notion of an afterlife and began to worship objects as gods.
~ 4,000+ years ago
In Mesopotamia (and other places), gods had become more human-like and had grown into families of gods with histories, personalities and diverse capabilities. The peoples living in this area became known as Canaanites. They included the civilisations of Sumer, Babylon, and Assyria, and they shared similar gods and religious traditions.
~3,900 years ago
Abram, an elderly Israelite, reported that a god he called Elohim had instructed him to found a new nation. Elohim shared several characteristics with the Canaanite war god, El. The Israelites, like others in the region of Canaan, were polytheists. Abram's god did not deny other gods but ordered that he alone be worshiped.
Thus we find the roots of a god that, over several thousand years, was adopted and adapted by a few dozen religions and became known by many names including YAHWEH, El-Shaddai, Jehovah, Jesus, and Allah.
This brings us to an important question that followers of Abrahamic religions have to answer. In contrast to thousands of invented gods spanning maybe 40,000 years, was Abram's god unique? Was Abram's god real? Or invented like all the others?
I have no idea how religious people could possibly answer this question. But religious people not only have to find an answer, but they have to do so with a high degree of certainty otherwise their entire worldview becomes mired in doubt. Can religious people say with even 10% confidence that Abram's god was real? I don't think so.
It's all very well to bring up specious arguments, such as the universe must have a creator but that argument loses ALL credibility when its followed by the impossible-to-prove assertion that the creator is the god Abram introduced to the world.
Invented gods do not create universes. QED.