Now, being a skeptic does NOT mean just blindly doubting stuff I don't like, but rather just wanting to know the reasoning & evidence for things where it is not intuitively obvious what is true or false.

Well, I may have a mountain to climb here, but I happen to think that it is intuitively obvious that God does not exist. Big religion's job is, and always has been, to enforce, from birth, suspension of intuition allied to a fear of questioning. Speaking as a cradle (but not to grave) Catholic, I realised that, once I'd divested myself of the fear factor that had been so carefully inculcated into me by those priests and brothers who taught me, my intuitive sense was finally set free. It seemed immediately intuitively clear to me that there was no God. That isn't good enough to be a proper atheist, however. It merely gives you a lead to pursue. That involves looking for evidence, as we all know that things can occasionally be counter-intuitive, etc. As a scientifically-trained chap, I looked at all the supposed evidence for the existence of God and found every scrap of it wanting. Not only that, the very concept of God required the breaching of every law of nature, and that was a suspension of disbelief way too far for me.

Why a mountain to climb? Because it will be immediately thrown back at me that billions of believers can't all have perverted senses of intuition. But I think they have. See how easy it is to get kids to believe in things we grown-ups all know are stupid: goblins, fairies Santa, the Sandman and so on. As the kids get older we gradually excuse them from continuing to believe in these fantasies. Big religion is different. Its aim is to instil similar fantasies from birth - but then, instead of letting us let go, it strengthens its grip by multiplying the fear factor, inventing draconian codes of behaviour and compliance and adding in the threat of ostracism (or worse) should you demur. Big religion also promises us more than the earth, as long as we stay in line. Big religion also knows full well how to wrap us up in social cosiness (which, even I have to admit, isn't always malignant), which is very enticing. It's a skill we ragbag collections of atheists are singularly bad at, which is why believers can throw in our faces all the superb work done by many Christian charities, etc. We can't usually match that.

But these human constructs - fairy stories, fear factors, social cohesion, big promises, good works - don't amount to a hill of beans when it comes to getting at the truth of God's existence or not. The only reason God hasn't become extinct is that human beings are not permitted to think of him as a hypothesis to be investigated. You can do that, but only when you're grown up and released from the fear factor, and that's too late, or never happens, for a lot of people. They remain deluded and, at least in one part of their brain, intellectually stunted. By not allowing people to let go of beliefs that are no more sound than those childhood fantasies, religion infantilises them.