That sounds great!

It seems like Christians have a lot of different ideas about what their god loves and hates

Maybe that's all it is

But with the huge variety of beliefs, how we can know which one is right?

Each person's experiences, biases, education, culture, predict what their god believes

Their god tends to align with the values of their culture or community

Their god will never be bigger than their limited view of the world.

Of course that's possible, but unlikely

It isn't just a subset of religious folks having this bias, while the rest align on a clear definition of a god

It's what we'd expect at least of a god that actually exists and wants his followers to follow him correctly

Instead we see in each believer a definition of a god that is a reflection of their hopes and fears

And yet that conclusion explains what we see in the real world so much better

We start to see the appeal of being able to hold unpopular beliefs, without having to take personal responsibility for them. Aka, "God says it, not me!"

We see the appeal of being able to create a ranking system that benefit ourselves, like religious, gender, or moral status

We see the appeal of being able to hold onto unverified, or even disproven, ideas

Or perhaps the ability to pervert ideas like forgiveness and love into tools to shame others.

If God is real and has clear standards, then we have to explain away the lack of consistency in every single belief

The theory that people create a god in their own image, and project their hopes and fear onto it, is far more consistent with reality.

Of course not! It should give us some cause to think about whether there are other issues with a belief in a deity though

Religion tends to intersect with power, and heavily impacts everyone

So it's important that we know for sure that it's true