The idea that there is a higher being makes absolutely no sense to me. Its like when you are a little kid and make up an imaginary friend, except this one is kind of like "mom and dad say that invisible Bob exists, so that must mean invisible Bob exists". If God exists, then show me he exists. In science something must be tested and proved before it is accepted as fact. If God exists, then prove it to me and I'll start believing, but until then I will not believe that he exists.
As for how God came to be created by man, I see God as originating as a control mechanism. I am referring to Abrahamic religions here, because that it what I am most familiar with. In the first book of the Bible, Genesis, God exerts his power over man by expelling Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden when they disobey him. This was intended to show that God punished those that disobeyed his commands. Then, skipping onto Exodus, we find the 10 commandments brought forth by Moses. The 10 commandments were not originally just a way to live your life, they were the laws of the Hebrews. The Bible originated as a book to enforce law among the Hebrew people, for who needs a large police force when people are afraid of eternal damnation in Hell?
Another reason that God was created was to explain things that could not be explained. The early Hebrews did not have the technology we have today to explain how the natural world works, so they created theories that remained theories since there was no way of proving them.
However, God has not remained as he was originally created. God has changed as his role as the omnipotent police man was no longer needed. I like the image of God today more than I like the image of God thousands of years ago. Among the majority of Christian churches, God is seen as a benevolent deity who loves all of man kind and will bring them to heaven, but at the same time a vengeful deity that will send people to Hell if they commit bad deeds. One of the problems here exists because the church, supposedly the voice of God on Earth, defines what is bad deeds. Therefore Christians have a set of morals defined by the church, rather than deciding for themselves what is truly right and wrong. I was raised Christian, and when I decided that I no longer believed in God, I took my morals as they had been defined by the church and modified them. I found that some things that I had been taught to believe were wrong had absolutely nothing wrong with them, and I decided that some things I had been lead to believe were right were actually very bad. One in particular that I dislike is that many Christians believe that people who are not Christian, or at least of an Abrahamic faith, will go to Hell when they die, and I have had many people try to convert me to Christianity thinking that they were doing me a service.
Also, before I became an atheist I chose to believe that everything in the Bible was metaphorical. If only all of Christianity held that belief. I remember once I was at the church youth group meeting during church when I was younger and I was asked "Do you believe God exists?", to which I replied "no, I believe that God is a metaphor for the good we should do in the world", to which I received quite a few stares. I found over time that in Christianity people believed that God literally existed and many of the events in the Bible actually happened, which further alienated me from the church. I could find a moral lesson from every metaphorical story in the Bible, but at church I was different because I did not think that the events were real events. Over time I came to the conclusion that I did not need the Bible as a moral guide, whether it be metaphorical or not. I decided that the morals I should live my life by should come from inside me, if I need an external source to make me a good person then I'm really not a very good person at heart. I don't need to have a book telling me what is right and wrong, I don't need to fear burning in Hell to do good deeds. Having my morals come from myself instead of an external source has served me well, and I believe that I have better morals today than I did at any point when I was a Christian.
A question some raise is the point of life if there is no creator. If we were not created by something and/or there is nothing out there, what is our purpose in life? In my own life I have never really felt the need to have a purpose for my existence. However, this is a very real need for many people. A purpose can be given by anyone though. One does not need to be some divine and holy power to attribute purpose to something. Just as an atheist's morals come from his or her self, an atheist's purpose for existing can as well. One might find that he or she takes great pride and accomplishment in something like being a good musician or being a good father. The purpose can easily be self assigned. There was no reason that you were created, but there can be a reason for you to continue existing after your creation.
Another thing that lead me to become an atheist was seeing people do and say horrible things in the name of Christianity. When I was a Christian these people represented me, a fellow Christian, and they had numerous supporters also representing me and all other members of the Christian faith. I refused to be associated at all with people saying that "faggots shouldn't be married" and that abortion is killing babies and the people that said Muslims were evil just because of their religious affiliation and such.
I am Dr. Locke Z2A, I am an atheist, and I am a better person than I ever was when I was a Christian.
Also, I have seen some interesting things about how religion was created if anyone wants to check them out:
The Entheogen Theory of Religion humans genetically coded to believe in a deity.
