Satan Wrote the Bible

Consider that the Jewish faith has been around for over 2,500 years; Christianity came along converting some Jews but obviously not all and it has been around for 2,000 years. Islam came on the scene in the seventh century (1,400 years ago) with the belief that Abraham, Moses and Jesus were profits but that their messages had been corrupted over time; the Qur’an, they believe, is the true and unadulterated word of God. And then we have Joseph Smith who found the Book of Mormon less than 200 years ago. All these religions purported to be better than those that preceded them and have, of course, not bowed to any that followed them. None of these religions loves science.
I just began reading Book 6 of The Story of Civilization: The Reformation by Will Durant (Simon and Schuster, New York 1957). He begins this volume with the following which I think is a pretty good answer to the question.
“RELIGION is the last subject that the intellect begins to understand. In our youth we may have resented, with proud superiority, its cherished incredibilities; in our less confident years we marvel at its prosperous survival in a secular and scientific age, its patient resurrections after whatever deadly blows by Epicurus, or Lucretius, or Lucian, or Machiaveili, or Hume, or Voltaire. What are the secrets of this resilience?
“The wisest sage would need the perspective of a hundred lives to answer adequately. He might begin by recognizing that even in the heyday of science there are innumerable phenomena for which no explanation seems forthcoming in terms of natural cause, quantitative measurement, and necessary effect. The mystery of mind still eludes the formulas of psychology, and in physics the same astonishing order of nature that makes science possible may reasonably sustain the religious faith in a cosmic intelligence. Our knowledge is a receding mirage in an expanding desert of ignorance. Now life is rarely agnostic; it assumes either a natural or a supernatural source for any unexplained phenomenon, and acts on the one assumption or the other; only a small minority of minds can persistently suspend judgment in the face of contradictory evidence. The great majority of mankind feel compelled to ascribe mysterious entities or events to supernatural beings raised above “natural law.” Religion has been the worship of supernatural beings -their propitiation, solicitation, or adoration. Most men are harassed and buffeted by life, and crave supernatural assistance when natural forces fail them; they gratefully accept faiths that give dignity and hope to their existence, and order and meaning to the world; they could hardly condone so patiently the careless brutalities of nature, the bloodshed and chicaneries of history, or their own tribulations and bereavements, if they could not trust that these are parts of an inscrutable but divine design. A cosmos without known cause or fate is an intellectual prison; we long to believe that the great drama has a just author and a noble end.”