The older i get....the more i think all religions are a scam

Well sure, many are.

The true fundamentalists aren’t exactly scamming you, they fully believe their naively formed ideals.

If it can change that much in a few months imagine how much it will in a few decades.

I agree that the "name brand" big church religions have very scammish behavior.

Yet, I also believe that there are many small groups of people meeting in houses or renting a small room somewhere where the people are focused on the key religious teaching of care about and for people, and don't get into all the negative things and various compulsions/expectations - not to mention false teachings - of many of the churches.

It's more complicated than that. Religions developed as a way of explaining our origins and the purpose of life, as well as nature and natural events such as storms and earthquakes.
But then the ruling class saw it as a useful way do do as you said, dominate the lower classes.
Then of course as in any institution there are unscrupulous priests who take advantage of their power and abuse the faithful.

This is why I prefer spirituality over religion. Treat others how you want to be treated and let everyone have their own beliefs. If they aren't causing harm, they are alright with me. Because when it comes down to it, when you meet your maker, you do that alone.

Usually you go through an atheist stage in your early 20s and the older you get and the more life you experience you start to realize its very plausible that a God made all this. You start to realize how full of shit people are and especially how many times scientists are wrong. You'll see it happen over and over until you roll your eyes at their latest predictions.

There are definitely a lot of snakes out there. It's an easy way to scam vulnerable people. You have to also understand that it wouldn't be a possibility to scam people this way if those people didn't have good hearts that allowed themselves to be vulnerable in the first place. Which proves that there are good people in the world...my problem is that it always seems to be about money. Except for Jehovah's witnesses...but they seem to drink a lot I found out. I used to go to church with them and was super into it and was dating this guy that was an atheist. I told him I wouldn't date him unless he went to church. He came with me one day and seemed to know half the guys in the church! I asked him later how he knew so many people and he told me they all practically lived at the bar he bartended at! Ha! So the women are super religious and the men are a bunch of drunks that are just trying to get laid and keep their wives happy by pretending to be religious.

You do you.

I dont think religious institutions do what their creed says but hey the Christian's are still handing out soup and a prayer so it's not all bad.

You come off as very young. Im not sure if you're old enough to have changed your opinions on things. You come off as college aged and just entering the world as an adult.

That's why I follow the good word of the ancient astronaut theory.

I don't feel the same way, but I can totally understand why someone would feel that way

Religion is something that tends to cloy, there's too much in religion, people shouldn't use it morally. There's been death over religion.

The "hell" with it all?

I suppose if you look hard enough you can find the evil in everything including religion. Or you can also choose to focus on the good in things. It all depends on how you choose to spend your life.

That's entirely reasonable. I don't know if they are scams but it is a reasonable conclusion to come to given all we know about them.