Maybe there is something valid about the idea of God. However, does he exist in the form we are taught in Sunday school? Maybe. But I tend to believe if he/she/whatever exists, it is in a completely different form.
And I doubt our relationship to him is that of a father-child relationship. I guess as our creator one could say he is our father, but I don't believe it extends beyond that.
As for the Spirit, I have had very powerful experiences not easily explained away. I wonder if there is indeed some cosmological explanation for the Spirit. And those feelings are real. However, I have experienced "the spirit" under many different conditions. And not all of them stemmed from church activities. Many different books, many of them not religious at all, have inspired me with feelings of the Spirit.
Because of this, I tend to believe religion as an institution is still man made. I think maybe religion capitalizes on this "spirit" and uses it to create and perpetuate belief among the members. They teach their members to interpret these feelings as being a manifestation their particular church is true. That would explain why religion gets it right sometimes, but misses the mark on other things. The strongest feelings I've ever felt from the Mormon church were while viewing an art exhibit at the Conference Center. But I have never felt anything remotely close to that while doing Endowment sessions in the Temple. Yet we are taught the temple is the place to go where we will be the closest to God. My experience has been the exact opposite.
All of this also explains why so many religions describe the exact same feelings as the source for them "knowing" their mutually exclusive beliefs.
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