Where did God come from? A dream, A lie, And an explanation

The notion that gods come from dreams is one I vehemently oppose. Before I continue, I believe it is necessary to disclose that I am an atheist, And also believe that religions, While not "true" or "real", Were integral and even necessary to build an advanced civilisation. Finally, I need to disclose that I come from a Hindu family, And hence feel "easier" discussing about gods in plural). If I misread the intent of your debate, And you wish to solely discuss a particular god, Please feel free to boot me out of this debate. So where do gods come from? To find the roots of theology, I believe it is necessary to examine the very first religions, The so called "pagan" religions. In general, The ancient religions we have some knowledge about, Are the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek and the Hindu religions. If one examines these religions, It is evident that the roots of theology are in rationalisation. As early humans, We did not know why lightning struck, So we invented a reason called Indra or Zeus. We had a distinct phobia of chaos (like the outcome of a flood or an attack from a particularly vicious creature) and loved the calm that order brought. Many civilisations like the Mesopotamian, Egyptian and the Greek believe that gods exist to combat chaos (like the tale of Marduk vs Tiamat or Apep vs Ra). Similarly, Gods became created to symbolise rivers (like the Ganges) which could gift them with bountiful harvest or take everything away in a flood, For no apparent reason. Even human actions and emotions that could not be understood, Like love and sleep earned their own gods in the form of Aphrodite and Hypnos. Then where do rituals and myths come from? At least some of it is again rationalisation. The ancient humans understood that the great animals of prey like the lion or the tiger are normally satisfied by hunting a few members of a herd. Hence, A few humans were satisfied to "appease" the "hunger" of these terrible "higher beings" that could call upon thunder, Lightning and floods to cause large natural disasters. The existence of a "soul" was reasoned from two sources - one, It was the thing that made us different from rocks, The substance that made life possible, And two, Since these higher beings apparently did not feast on the carcass offered like lions or tigers did, They must have been appeased with something else, Something that must have been there when the victims were alive but were taken away upon death. Voila - a "soul". Many religions also deal extensively with death, And basically comfort the living that those who left us are in a much better place, Be it Valhalla, Elysium or Heaven. This also became a tool for both ensuring that one behaves properly and to rationalise bad luck. If one misbehaves, On gets cast to a "bad" place - Hell or Tartarus. Finally, If one behaved well and still had a spate of bad luck, It must have been a bad deed from a "past life". Hence, Was born reincarnation. Finally, We come to epics. Most religions have these, From the takes of Achilles and Hercules to the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. This, I believe to be simply a result of successive exaggerations of a real event during the period when stories were chiefly passed down from ear to ear. Maybe a hard armour became invulnerability, Or a natural talent became a god given ability. This was continued for a long time till somebody was able to pen down the myth, And by then, It became a clash of titans. Basically, I believe that the ancient humans anthropomorphised anything they could not understand, From the forces of nature to human behaviour. This is strictly different from dreaming, As understanding and rationalisation is what we humans still pride ourselves on. It is just that the early humans did not have the understanding of hypothesis testing, "correlation is not causation" and other such facts we realised. Instead they made more "primitive" conclusions - they believed in the gods.