Religion..or lack thereof

So I have been thinking about the next topic that I want to rant about, and there are a few things stirring around, but I decided what I wanted to write about while I was preparing my evening meal and drinking a beer. It's not about politics, or anything that I'm going to need to check facts and figures before I write which is why I chose this topic. This is just what I think, and what my warped mind has settled on over my vast experiences of 32 years. The topic is religion, or at least organized religion. It's a touchy topic to some people, people are sensitive to this, sometimes too sensitive. I'm from the deep South, the Bible Belt, and most of the people that I know from that area tow the party line of being a good Christian. Many will talk the talk of the Good Book, but I think actions are far more important than words. What you do is a far greater metric of character than what you say. Talk is cheap.
If the belief in God (whatever denomination) helps get you through the day, then that's ok with me, I don't care. You can believe whatever you want, whatever incarnation of a deity that gets you off is just great if it gives you a clear conscience and helps you sleep at night. Of course all things in moderation, right? As long as you don't fly planes into buildings, strap bombs to your chest, conduct ethnic cleansing wholesale, or serve your faithful (gullible, stupid) followers the red Kool-Aid in the name of that deity, it does not really bother me. But at the same time don't wave your Bibles at me, don't give me "that look" when I say no I do not go to church, and don't ask me if I'm an atheist when I don't give the exact answers that you would give when you ask about my lack of church going behavior. It's none of your Goddamn business. (Recently had this experience when someone from a local church knocked on my door, disturbing what had been a perfectly good Saturday, they also left a flyer with me in case I changed my mind. It went directly to the garbage can).
I've often wondered why the allure of leaving a perfectly good bed on a Sunday morning. What I've come to decide is, at the core of it, there is a natural fear of death. The belief in a God and an afterlife helps to qualm those fears. After all, most everyone fears the unknown, most everyone fears death, and there is no greater unknown than death. Call it a perceived nest egg, or a cushion that prevents a person from having to think about it. It makes life more convenient if you don't have to think about death. Also it's a form of collectivism, groupings of like minded people reinforce each other. A pack mentality, the end result of which can sometimes be a wolf in sheep's clothing.
I'm not an atheist. I don't call myself a Christian either, I think that gives certain connotations that I probably could never live up to. I think that there is a God because all of this had to come from something. I don't totally rule out the possibilities of the Big Bang or Darwinian evolution. Maybe a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away there was a sudden poof and everything that is suddenly was. But there had to be a catalyst to that sudden poof. Something from nothing just doesn't happen, at least not in the natural world. Evolution or creation...well that's a debate that for some reason has to be one or the other. Creationists ignore the scientific evidence, the fossils that plainly show the development of homo sapien from cro magnon, the link between lizards and birds (archaeopteryx..google it), and various other examples. We also see evidence of evolution today in science with bacterial resistance to antibiotics. And creationists point at Genesis 1:1. Highly scientific. So why does it have to be one or the other? What if it is actually a combination of both, which I think is the case. Of course, this does not resolve every aspect of this issue. Since things don't just come from nothing, there is still the case of if there is a God, where did God come from?
While writing this I've been watching the debate between Hillary and Obama. As the debate comes to a close, as is this writing, I can only think one thing..God help us all!