Sure it did. God has always served the purpose of filling the most pressing gap in our knowledge at any given time. Back in 2000BC we all sat around and then suddenly water fell from the sky and a great flash of light caused a tree to explode into flame. That event was explainable to us. We had no idea what electricity is, how charges work, how the water cycle worked, ect. So it must be an angry being on top of that mountain over there throwing bolts at us! But one day we climb that mountain and we dont find any gods up there. Then we see those big white fluffy things in the sky. God must be up there!

Well now we can fly and we fly up to those clouds and dont find god anywhere. Well, god must be in space then! Well our telescopes see billions of miles into space and still no god. So now christians say god is invisible and transcendent and caused the universe to form. Just because we dont know how the big bang occurred they shove god in that gap. Religions have only become more complex as the gaps in which they fit have become smaller and more complex.

Do you think campfires are the origin of the song Kumbaya, my Lord, Kumbaya? Or, in the Mid East, kumbayallah, my Lord, kumbayallah?

First, you aren't likely to get anything close to a decent debate when you started with a rather bigoted premise. You may believe this, but the way you phrased it is insulting and dismissive to those who believe it (a group that I do not belong to, by the way). There is no productive reason to phrase it this way.

Second, one needs only look at the complex history of the Judeo-Christian mythos to realize it is far more than "primitive campfire tales". Religion itself may have originated there, but the Judeo-Christian beliefs evolved (ha) into complex institutions that are the culmination of several millennia worth of cultural progression and history. To oversimplify that does your argument a disservice.

Christians, unlike Muslims and the followers of other religions, consider their faith, to be sufficiently robust to withstand the ''slings and arrows'' from the scoffing classes. How clever you must be to recognize that the 2000 year old bible, written by well meaning scholars of their time, is out of date, ( repeat;- 2000 years old, did you figure out all by yourself that that was a long time ago?) and has been eclipsed by science. They were the intellectual academics of their day and made a gallant attempt at explaining the profound mysteries of their own world and the visible universe in an environment of virtual total ignorance. This superseding of all the man made religious scriptures by science is something which even a 10 years old child could deduce, so don't feel as though you have hit upon some new revelation about which the world must be made aware. I always have a snigger to myself when dummies such as you are always selective in your attacks on people's genuinely held religious beliefs and decide to mock and ridicule only (''TURN THE OTHER CHEEK'') Christianity and avoid casting aspersions on the other major religion of Islam as presented by the paedophile prophet Mohammad. Frightened of the ''Muslim head hackers'' tracing you and paying you a visit?

Campfires come from fire and dry wood ! Green wood does not burn to well !

I wonder the exact time in history when some women and men sat around a campfire and asked how they could kill their unborn Baby?

I wondered when man first chose to kill his neighbor?

We have had the evils of man on display for milleniums.

God's humanity has been at odds with the inhumanity of man since the beginning of time.

Your views on Christianity are biased, watered-down, and generally ignorant. Now, I will begin by saying, although I am a deep-seated Atheist, I believe in religious freedom. Now, Christianity is derived from Judaism, which was no doubt based on some Graeco-Roman or Mesopot, etc. Regardless, I can't think of any major religion which has a background history consisting of "campfire tales". Your entire premises is simply not sufficient for debate; rather, it seems you are content with "flaming". While Christianity/Judaism may have been influenced by astronomy (I am not sure whether you actually meant to say astrology, which is different), the Bible could not have been purely based upon some archaic form of astronomy. Over the course of human history, the true origins of the old religions have been lost to us, and as such, there is no truly arguable point to make here. They may have been "primitive campfire tales", they may have been human political machinations, they may have even been records of extraterrestrial encounters (that was a joke).

I accept the history that Constantine used religion, but I'm convinced religion would still be what it is today without any political history.

If one deducts all of existence to its essence, being left with just the 24hr inertness of the Sun and nature, it's hard not to think that religion is essential and reasonable.