Do you wish there's a god?

[Acrobat]

Messy indeed... and that is why belief systems seem to have a regional component, at least, prior to easy worldwide travel.

I’m not merely speaking of our belief systems per se but our perceptions of reality itself, and I agree there are regional differences as well. There are likely to be differences between the perceptions of reality among Texans and New Yorkers, Chinese and Danes, etc….Our experiences of reality, shape our perceptions of reality. “The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man”.

From my point of view, the "moral order" which you mentioned is simply related to general agreed upon behaviors among a social population that lead to the survival of that population. along with the betterment of the population as a whole. I'm using betterment here to mean, less suffering, easier access to food and mates, more protection against threats, etc…

No, they’re not generally agreed upon behavior, they are generally recognized perceptions. The elephant at the zoo doesn’t exist because we agree that it does, it exists, and as a result we generally recognize it at the zoo, unless of course we’re blind.

No one needs to tell you something is wrong to recognize that something is wrong, in fact even babies seem capable of making such recognization. Torturing innocents babies for fun isn’t wrong because you and I agree it’s wrong, anymore so than 1+1 =2, because we agree it equals 2. If we agree it equals 4, we would be wrong.

I'd wager that the drive to believe in the transcendent is also an evolved trait. One that is also quite recent and that can be why we have a large part of the global population that finds such belief baffling, the atheists.

Where as you say it’s an evolved trait, I say it’s an evolved recognition. As a result of our evolved features, we are capable of recognizing that there’s something transcendent to reality, much like we are able to recognize truth, and goodness, etc…

Why evolve such a drive towards belief? Perhaps, initially, to keep the mind from pondering questions for which society was not equipped to provide an answer, and keep the people dedicated to their "jobs", producing food and tools and practical stuff. Eventually, it would have taken over a majority of the population and then disbelief would have been selected against, as believers would find it easier to breed and survive. At some threshold in the ratio of believers/disbelievers, the disbelievers would have started to be banned from society, shunned, mocked.... barred from producing offspring. And belief got selected for even further.

You ever hear a fundie trying to resolve a blaring inconsistency or contradiction in the bible? They often make elaborate and cute arguments and defenses to claim it isn’t an inconsistency or contradiction. The sort that might get pats on the back from other fundies, but is hardly believe. They’re cute excuses, and nothing more.

It’s a cute counter argument you presented above, but hardly believable, to anyone other than those trying to deny such a religious reality. No body believes in transcendent reality, to keep others dedicated to their jobs, or to produce food, they believe it because they perceive it, or sense there’s something more to life than the sum of its parts. It’s a part of our conscious recognition of reality.

Ants and other animals are dedicated to their jobs, probably more so than humans in certain ways, and they need no such beliefs. Yet us human creatures, have all sorts of additional desires, that keeps us from not merely seeking for ways to survive, but in pursuit of something higher, something to live for.

You can make atheistic excuses to explain this way, but the motivation for you doing so, is a desire not to believe. When its much easier to believe based on such things, then not to believe.