I have yet many things to say to you,
but you cannot bear them now.
When the Spirit of Truth comes,
He will guide you unto all the truth.

I think that religions are often born in a state of intellectual curiosity, and Christianity is one of those. A new religion overturns existing beliefs and its followers are filled with intellectual vibrancy (or the endorphin rush that the primate brain gets when its curiosity is satisfied by an answer...any answer that triggers the endorphin rush is perceived as the right answer).

It's also inevitable that any religion decays into dogma over time. It's interesting that about the same amount time passed before Christianity became institutionalized, as the amount of time since the Enlightenment and the establishment of science, and the present. I think that human nature presents the real risk that we might embrace science as a dogma and turn it into another form of religion.

I think that superstition often arises from dogma, in an attempt to shoehorn new data into existing beliefs. Superstition is defined as a confusion about cause-and-effect, and nobody appears more confused than somebody trying to spin reality to fit dogma. Believing that because the universe exists, there must be a Creator, is pure superstition. Yet believers dig themselves deeper into the hole of superstition the harder they try to defend dogma against new knowledge. Superstition grows with time as cause-and-effect has to be twisted into ever-fancier knots to maintain belief.

Think about the context. A modern Creationist comes across as a complete whackjob today, yet it was barely a century ago that Creationism was mainstream belief. People who cling to the branch of dogma find themselves farther and farther out on a limb as the tree of knowledge grows.

One thing about your second paragraph is that it's all about blame: Who inflicted Katrina, who flooded your house, who drowned the cat, who can we blame for George W. Bush. There's something in human nature that requires somebody to hold accountable. If you guess that I'm about to bring up primatology yet again, here's a doggie treat, Bowze. The alpha male is not only in charge, he's responsible, and as tribal primates we derive a sense of comfort in knowing that somebody's in charge, and that there's somebody we can blame if things go wrong. Authoritarian conservatives scrape their bellies on the ground giving obeisance to the Strong Father, until he fails, and then they rip him to shreds. Authoritarian leaders ride the tiger every time.

If somebody must be responsible, random chance is a fundamentally unacceptable explanation for anything. No more satisfying is the notion of systemic causes, that things can happen because of circumstances, and that not all bad things are the result of somebody's malicious intentions. Yet random and system causes are valid explanations for the effect, and those who deny it and search for the guilty party, even if it's God, are confusing cause-and-effect at a basic level.

"Shit happens" may be a fundamental truth of the universe, but religion is all about saying it ain't so.