Once again I heartily recommend the book by Simon Singh. All of these questions are answered therein, plus a shitload more that I suspect chimp hasn't the wherewithall even to imagine.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'