Oh your god!

I am so so so tired of all the stupidness and blindness that religions stuff
into the head of people. But as true as it is that gods (not God, but any and every god) do not exist, that they are a common phenomenon in human societies, it is also true that this phenomenon (which drives people to NEED to believe so badly) will be around for a while. Only common sense, critical thought will get us out of this.
I say this because what it hurts me more is to see very intelligent scientists who believe in some god. Here in the UMN I happen to have a young friend who is really really good at math and physics. He's catholic. Another friend she is a postdoc in applied math. She is jewish and very religious.
Once we were talking during lunch time at the University student center here in University of Minnesota. It was me, another atheist chinese friend and these two guys.
I was telling them things like "not only I do not believe but I think all religions are just wrong". Talking about the existence of her god, The jewish friend tells
me "ohh, it's too complex! I can't understand it is soooo complex". Then she tells me "I am not sure but ... I think there is a phylosophical proof (that god exists)".
Then I tell her that "there is no such thing as a phylosophical proof, or else, phylosophical proofs are by definition mathematical proofs. It was phylosophers who invented formal proofs, not mathematicians".
Talking a little more she comes up with the popular "maybe he lives in some other dimension", which of course is ridiculous, as if more dimensions meant "some sort of room where things can hide away from the view of simple beings like us". But more ridiculous was the answer of my catholic friend, who as I said knows a lot of physics, he's a close follower of all the latest physics theories, and tells me (smiling as if he just drew a card from his sleeve) "do you know that Stephen Hawking has proven the existence of at least 7 dimensions??". That really destroyed me, I mean, it depressed me so much I barely could answer, and since then (more than a month ago) I cannot stop thinking about it. How can a guy, a so clever guy (he's very brilliant) tell me something SO stupid and coward, not coward towards me, but towards himself. It's so obvious he has the analytical power to rule that argument out immediatly.
But I know what's the real problem of these people. They have a "switch" in their minds. They just won't use their analytical power when dealing with their own beliefs because they FEAR they could destroy their beliefs, and from there they will just stop seeing the promised land, they would understand how close they are to nothing, how there is nothing more about us as very sophisticated automata.