Religion was forced down my throat while growing up. Think Carrie's mother in the Stephen King novel. Took me 25 years to shake off the final fear of ending up in hell (though I stopped practicing in my teens) to become an atheist, thanks to a free CD stuck to a magazine containing a program called Red-shift which simulated the known universe (was pretty good for the 90s) I'm almost twice that age now and have mellowed out some.
For years, I went a bit Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher on everyone with a pair of ears, but realised that I was was basically evangelizing my personal convictions and no better than those screaming tent preachers who hit people with their jackets.
Today I'd classify myself as a pantheist. Without evidence, I have to reject all earthly gods and always will until proven wrong, but the universe does some really strange and amazing things. There is something else going on. Dark matter and energy are problematic concepts. If I am self-aware, it means that the universe is too. Because I don't live in the universe. I am it and if little clumps of it can become self-aware for a few decades, some built-in "aliveness" must permeate it.
I think the "answer" is way bigger and different than we humans could grasp at this stage of our evolution.
I would not disagree with your line of thought. My belief is a bit different than many... a bit of Calvinism and Buddhism and Christian, I guess.
If you want to read about it, I'm linking it here.
I wrote this some months back, but I've had this conceptually in my mind and heart for quite some time.