Abiogenesis is impossible

[pocaracas]

The urge to live further than the frail human body allows, yes...

Other than ancient Egypt immortality that wasn't really the compelling belief. The ancient Jews didn't even really believe in any afterlife and they still don't particularly have a unified doctrine today. Christian doctrine does have plenty to say when it comes to eternal life as revealed by Christ.

You missed a big one

Upon learning more about religious traditions across the world, western scholars also described similar magico-religious practices found within the indigenous religions of other parts of Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Americas as shamanism.
[...]
The shaman communicates with both living and dead to alleviate unrest, unsettled issues, and to deliver gifts to the spirits. Shamans assist in soul retrieval. In shamanism it is believed that part of the human soul is free to leave the body.

Sort of pre-dating all your egyptians and jews and mesopotamians, and chinese and whatever...
Yeah... the cult of the dead, the fear of death, the desire for the after-life... already present in mankind's brain well before any proper organized religion.
Wouldn't take much for someone to take advantage of that and organize something around that fear, that desire...

Outside of that you have NDEs which I think are good evidence for conscious survival beyond the physical state as there is a good case to be made that the brain is entirely biologically non-functional while they are having this experience.

Oh, not this again!!
If the brain was non-functional, how did it get functional again?
Do you know how a neuron transmits a signal to another neuron?
OH, yeah... magic, right? -.-'

Also the experience does seem to have elements in common with the religious or mystical experience and importantly this is cross cultural. Besides I don't think atheists appreciate that consciousness being a byproduct of the brain is something for which there is any solid evidence or reason to believe. We know it's "physically influential" along with the rest of the body in general but that's about it. Everything else is speculation and assumption based on opinion. God provides the non-physical framework into which this opinion can be mistaken, you can be assured that it is.

Everything else is speculation, huh? Well, then, I'm sorry to inform you, but that includes your god-boy... pure speculation.

How would we come to have knowledge of the existence of these... disembodied consciousnesses?
Remember the shamans? and the simple folk who wished they could carry on, somehow, after death?... yeah... wishful thinking, speculation... that's all you have.

Oh, I wouldn't be so bold...
South american indians were godless when the europeans came by

That's not true at all many of them believed in something like this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism


"In panentheism, the universe in the first formulation is practically the whole itself. In the second formulation, the universe and the divine are not ontologically equivalent. In panentheism, God is viewed as the eternal animating force behind the universe. Some versions suggest that the universe is nothing more than the manifest part of God. In some forms of panentheism, the cosmos exists within God, who in turn "transcends", "pervades" or is "in" the cosmos"

Very similar to the Biblical monotheism.

Here is an excerpt from the letter written by the scribe aboard the ship that sailed from Portugal and made land in Brazil, in the year 1500.
This letter was addressed to the king of Portugal, at the time.

Parece-me gente de tal inocência que, se homem os entendesse e eles a nós, seriam logo cristãos, porque eles, segundo parece, não têm, nem entendem em nenhuma crença.

Oh, you don't understand it?... pfff
here's a translated version
- These people seem to be so innocent that, if a man was to understand them and them us, they would be christian there and then, because they, as it seems, don't have nor understand any belief.

.. as far as the europeans could see, at least.
And the Buddhists are sort of considered atheists.... with that all pervasive requirement for life after the body shuts down.

Jainism and Buddhism the idea is that everything is God and we are part of God and we attain some kind of unity with God and dissolve yourself into it. In Christianity and the Abrahamic faiths there is always a clear distinction between God and his creatures and we retain our individually.

I'm not very knowledgeable in buddhism, but I guess that description is wrong... let's wait for rasetsu to posit her inside view on that.

Some, if not many, view Buddhism as more a way to live a good life, than as a path to any kind of salvation through karma and reincarnation. In this light, the practice of Buddhism can be seen as a path to inner peace and justice, even viewing the Buddha as less a religious figure, but more a guide to the good life, and a moral teacher, in the same way that some may emphasize the aspect of Jesus as a moral teacher, with or without accepting his divinity — even without accepting his historicity (or its veracity). I've even read accounts that suggest that the Buddha himself in his first person teaching often demurred on the question of reincarnation and Karma, preferring to focus on the here and now. In this aspect, for some, Buddhism's metaphysical doctrines can be viewed in the same light as the belief in gods in Buddhism, that yes they are there, but they're just not important. These types of Buddhism likely would emphasize the aspects of compassion, which is core to Mahayana Buddhisms, and the practice of detachment as noted in the four noble truths (the practice of which, is greatly misunderstood by Westerners), and the moral guidance offered by frameworks such as the eightfold path, and that provided by the wisdom of Buddhist sages throughout the ages.

I see no god is everything in there...