I deny that the existence of God is a foregone conclusion. We can't prove God exists like we can't prove ghosts exist. All evidence taken into account, they both seem to be projections of various human emotions and desires; fear, the desire to dominate, the desire for purpose -- facilitated by the development of conscious thought itself. God is a necessary podium upon which humans who need comfort from the reality of impermanence might place their own fears, anxieties and desires; God is an entity who can be an exterior arbiter of force whom humans can endow with all authority, to give some idea of consistency and of destiny to a life that is otherwise, for such people, an unbearably impermanent and relative phenomena.
Nature has led to an entity within nature which can study both itself and the nature that led to its existence, and because of that humans live with an uneasy capability for self-realization that religion explains away as part of our destined purpose. Such an expanation strokes the ego; it appeals to the selfishness innate in humans, it agrees with the human tendency to think that humanity is so important on some cosmic scale. Ultimately, humans need to project these desires in order to give them meaning; to give a sense of eternal purpose to our existences because the idea of death as the end of life conflicts with the immortality that humans cling to above all else. Our greatest biological urge is for survival, our greatest mental capacity is for furthering our survival, and so it is no surprise that the ultimate goal in the most prominent world religion is to gain an eternal life.
That, I think, explains a lot.