To paraphrase Laplace, there's no need of that archaic hypothesis.

That's also a good point about ancestors. Those who especially respect their elders are children, so they have a hard time renouncing their religious upbringing. It's interesting, though, that the US is more individualistic than Eastern countries, and doesn't respect its elders so much. This is one reason high religiosity is surprising in the US. There's still that instinctive connection between parents and children, of course, but American modernity evidently undermined some of the traditional mechanisms.