God is Santa for adults

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I don't understand the request for a "why" of the universe. How does religion answer it? If a superbeing had a reason for starting the universe what religion defines why the superbeing decided to do so? Was it a whim and that would make everything OK? What kind of an answer would you want?
When people ask why is a certain thing in a certain place in a machine the answer is that it performs a particular function to make the machine work. Are you looking for a function for the universe? As far as I have heard about religion no overall function seems to be stated there except, perhaps, the manufacture of beings to admire their creator. Perhaps that is satisfactory to some people but if a human were to somehow create creatures merely to admire him or her it would be a pretty silly human.

I am not disputing that some people enjoy subjugating themselves to an assumed superbeing. If it makes them happy, that's OK with me. I just don't understand how that explains anything essential as to the reason for the existence of the universe. It merely grants all justification to an intelligence which offers no answers. Or at least no answers I have been able to discover. If anyone has answers I would like to find out what they are.

Is there a special posture or plaintive voice that one lets loose into the upper atmosphere to have all revealed. Telling me that I don't know is something I know very well. Or do you delight in emulating the Wizard of Oz?

But that brings in the daunting business of infinite regression. If there is a god, how did that god originate and what kind of meaning does that imply? If there are an infinite number of gods making gods is that any less of a foolishness or incomprehensibility? What kind of satisfactory meaning arises out of that?

No, the universe is not "expanding into something". You have to look into string theory and the latest versions involving "branes" which have to do with the vibration of multidimensional structures. Neither science nor religion is equipped to justify causes in the universe. Science merely examines structures and how they integrate and what they indicate of what might be. In general, religion invents super people to say that they have motivations similar to our own and that seems to satisfy them. But these super people have as much reality as flying saucers and basically explain nothing. If God decided to create the Earth (which we are now well aware is a mere bit of insignificant dust in a universe so huge that it is almost impossible to comprehend from the viewpoint of size alone) religion never explains why He did so. Is it a hobby or some sort of cosmic jewelry or is He merely a psychotic idiot? Does He play with life on Earth the way a kid plays with his electric trains? Who knows? Certainly religion provides no answers. At least none that I find satisfactory.

Santa is an anagram of Satan!

They both dress in red but Santa has no obvious tail and horns so it doesn't work for me.

And for me, God is kind of just not.
I am at an age to know that my life is very limited and I know enough to not kid myself with invented foolishness. I value every minute that is left and realizing that there is no more makes each second even more enjoyable and valuable.

I've seen a lot of anti-religion sentiment on WP and I just have to ask, what's the big deal? Isnt it kind of narrowminded to assume that because you dont find peace in believing in a supreme being that the whole activity is therefore foolish for all humankind? Respectfully the same peace you find in not believing, others find in believing. I dont see if it's hurting anyone to believe in an afterlife or a god if that's how they choose to live. I think people assume that religion forces you to do something you dont want to do, but many people like living that way because it gives them calm. I know it benefits millions of people to think their loved ones are in some afterlife instead of dead decaying in the ground, and that some day people will see each other again. People have believed such things for as long as humankind has existed, so it's not like it's anything new or that anything is being hindered. Whatever makes you happy is good for you. Isnt it beneficial to see both sides of the issue here?

In many instances, life is not calm nor is it fair. Horrible things happen to people every day for no discernible reason. In a very large number of cases religion gives people not a sense of accepting that the universe is neither friendly nor unfriendly but declares guilt for arbitrary precepts. The universe is frequently dangerous and destructive for no motivation at all. It is merely the way things happen. You just have to grit your teeth and deal with it. The guilt that religion smears over life is unnecessary and not needed.