I totally understand your sentiments.
I was born and raised Roman Catholic.
BUT - I never "accepted" any aspect of the faith that I thought to be absurd.
For instance, I do not want to be drinking the blood of my God, or eating his flesh in mass every Sunday, but I accept the eating of wafers as a simple ritual and leave it at that.
I have never drank the wine because I don't want to swap spit with hundreds of random people, sorry, not my cup of tea.
I too am a scientist, and I can offer you this easy consolation in there being life after death.
You are familiar with the law of conservation of energy, right?
"Energy is never created or destroyed, it merely changes forms."
If you burn a wooden log, you get carbon and heat.
If a human being dies, you get a rotting corpse, and the release of the magnificent spirit that used the human body as its "vehicle" to traverse this plane of existence, and upon its expiration, is freed back to where it came from before.
See how that works?
Really simple, isn't it?
Now you just have to decide if YOU believe in the possibility of our existence as we know it being the temporary marriage of a human body, and a heavenly spirit that has an awareness and capacity to reason and love and feel far beyond any other creature on this Earth.
This is the magnificence of human life, IMHO.
In all honesty, I used to hate organized religion. As you noted the conglict and contradictory dogmas and other junior high bullshit is just not my style.
I have always had a very good relationship with the God of my understanding.
Since I was a little boy, I knew God was present, and by the time I was an adolescent I knew that I had the choice to do his bidding here on Earth, to serve the greater good in the course of my daily life, to love my fellow brothers and sisters, to help my neighbors, and each time I elect to do so, I become happier, more content, and feel at one with the Earth and the sky and the heavens above.
THAT - is the essence of MY religion.
I might be a Roman Catholic, but above that I know that God gave m and all other men and women FREE WILL, and I choose to serve my Lord and maker in a way that makes sense to me, and not by forcing myself to try and serve him in ways sanctified by a man-made organization that frankly, I am really not that comfortable with. I help my family, I help my friends, I help my neighbors, I do not think it necessary for me to give a percentage of my annual income blindly to an organization that has demonstrated time and again over history to be tainted by a lust for power, and in some cases things far worse.
Church has its place, don't get me wrong, but don't go to one unless you are COMFORTABLE there, that is my rule of thumb.
And as far as your belief in God, that is between you and Him.
This world is no accidnet.
The inter-relationships between all the living creatures of our ecosystem are by intelligent design, and I dare say the intellignet design of a wise and loving creator, who gave us, his spiritual children, a chance to live a life within a body that's existence is far different from the spirit that runs it.
This life is a gift, this is not a dress rehearsal.
Live each day with love in your heart, and faith that the greater good wil find you if you but believe, and one day, you will awaken and be at peace yet still overjoyed.
I hope my ramblings made some sense to you.
Feel free to follow up with any comments/questions you wish.
I am an open book.
-Alex