You have to redefine what religion is because what you have does not make sense. Flying horses, virgin conceptions, resurrection, spirits, 6000 year old Earth, creating woman from a rib bone, or man from dirt, talking snakes, etc., etc. All utter nonsense.
Keep re-writing it, eventually you'll get to the truth. Life is not unique in this or other universes, humans might not be the surviving lifeform in few thousands/millions of years. Humans are not special animals, we are like all other monkeys, we are just smarter and can talk.
I define religion as anything an individual structures their life around either consciously or unconsciously.
I talked about this more here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1373864.msg35126317#msg35126317I have seen arguments like your before af_newbie. They are often followed by statements like
Life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. There is no inherent morality, accepted moral values are abstractly contrived. The universe and everything in it is entirely random. Ultimately there is no real point to life.
I am familiar with this "religion" this this type of faith if you will. I find it unpersuasive to say the least.
Many religious texts make a lot more sense then you are giving them credit for. I have found Jordan Peterson's lecture series on that topic to be particularily insightful as he goes through one of them line by line.
Biblical Series I: Introduction to the Idea of Godhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-wWBGo6a2wThe purpose of life is to survive and procreate. It is a common purpose in all life forms, including humans.
You are over analyzing it. It is pretty simple. People fear death and develop self coping mechanism to deal with that fear.
Have you noticed that poor and uneducated people are more religious than educated and independently wealthy. Why is that?
Poor and uneducated have more to fear and need some hope (any myth will do) to help them cope with their problems and questions.
Saying that some bronze stone texts have any insights is like saying that Pinocchio fairy tale is a good source of engineering knowledge.
People are killing and mistreating people in the name of those religious texts. Even today. How can you say that slavery is a good thing?
You know it causes harm. People who wrote these texts were psychopaths.