Well thats's up yo personal belief more so than anything. We can't really prove nor disprove deities, so we can't really argue either side of that debate fully.
There is a huge different between “god doesn’t exist” and “proven there is no need for a god.”
Depending who you ask, there is plenty of evidence. And you don’t even need to ask the Ken Ham’s of the world—there’s literally dedicated fields of study in philosophy arguing this.
The whole “one bad apple spoils the bunch” comes from a series Descartes’ essays trying to figure out if God can be real.
Plus, everyday people have experiences that they interpret as religious events. Coincidence, whatever, that could apply—you can’t, with 100% certainty prove them wrong. You can only assume based off the information you have and your preconceived notions of the world.
Religion is complicated. People’s faith makes it even moreso.
Yes it does. That’s why eyewitness testimony is rocky at best and usually not considered completely sound—especially after any duration of time has passed.
Yes it does. That’s why eyewitness testimony is rocky at best and is rarely counted as hard evidence. This is especially true the further back the witness has to recall to get the memory.
You also have to ask multiple experts to agree on something before anything with evidence gains weight, but evidence looks different to experts too. That’s why almost everything has some form of division.
Well I honestly see no reason to try and disprove religions. Some of them do have fucked traditions, yes, but trying to invalidated one's faith is just sad.
As for the Santa part, I can't really argue against that. But for my own sake I'm going to keep pretending he's real, as that's more comforting that the thought of a crackhead breaking into my house and stealing nothing but cookies.
Financial gain? We're speaking of religion, not vanity churches. If people want to believe in something above themselves, you have no right to say otherwise just because you yourself believe against it. And the fact you believe all religion is directly tied to money really speaks numbers to how you see things you don't like.
There would be no religions if there wasn't churches pushing them. People can believe in the tooth fairy for all i care. Doesn't make it true or possible.