The most important idea in pretty much every religion is that consciousness transcends the physical brain, and as a result, can somehow persist beyond the death of the physical body. But, neuroscience has now essentially eliminated this idea.
We don't yet know how the brain produces subjective, conscious experiences, but we can say with near certainty that subjective, conscious experiences are dependent upon the brain to occur. How could you say that consciousness transcends the brain when damaging certain parts of the brain (through traumatic injury or stroke, for example) damages and alters consciousness? Other examples: if one's brain is traumatically injured, it is possible to lose consciousness. If blood rushes away from the brain too quickly, a person's consciousness is either partially or completely eliminated until the blood returns to the brain (this is the cause of fainting). If a person is given a chemical anesthetic that interacts with the brain chemistry, consciousness can be temporarily eliminated. Or, if a person is given certain drugs, the state of consciousness can be reduced or altered (alcohol is an obvious example--think about how much conscious perceptions change when drunk).
All of this is OVERWHELMING evidence that having a working, living brain is necessary in order to be conscious, and, essentially, refutes the claims of all religions (although some creative objections based on unfounded magical concepts could probably still be made). The only attempted refutation of this that I have seen anyone give is that the brain is analogous to a radio that receives the radio waves of consciousness. But, my question would then be, even if that is true, how can one receive these signals WITHOUT a brain? Hypothesizing some non-physical consciousness receiver does not really solve the problem when there is no evidence that such a thing exists, particularly because it never comes into play when a person loses consciousness in the scenarios alluded to above.
So, the bottom line is, I don't see how consciousness could transcend the brain. I WISH it could and HOPE I am wrong. But I don't see how I could be.
I will do the skeptic part on your post.
You are taking for granted at a minimum the following unproveable axiomatic assumptions in your reasoning.
#1: The universe is fair. I.e. you are not in a computer simulation or any other variant including any metaphysical idealistic ones(supernatural/religious). In other words you take for granted that your first person experiences are "one to to" with the universe as independent of your experiences.
#2: You take for granted that all meaning of how to do your life can be in effect reduced down to reason, logic and evidence.
So here it is for a skeptic like me. I don't have to do the supernatural in the classical sense, but I can't do the universe with only reason, logic and evidence. A part of that is this:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/whatisscience_12
For this part in the link:
"Science doesn't draw conclusions about supernatural explanations
Do gods exist? Do
supernatural entities intervene in human affairs? These questions may be important, but science won't help you answer them. Questions that deal with
supernatural explanations are,
by definition, beyond the realm of nature — and hence, also beyond the realm of what can be studied by science. For many, such questions are matters of personal faith and spirituality."
My bold. It means that science as you use it start with the assumption or definition, that the universe is natural. But that is without evidence. Rather it is how evidence works as a cognitive form of subjectivity.
So for you post: There is no OVERWHELMING evidence of whether the universe is supernatural or not. That is in practice unknown and thus it ends here: You subjectively choose how you deal with the idea of the supernatural, but that says nothing about the metaphysical/ontological status of what the universe is as independent of your mind. And that goes for all positive claims and not just idealism, but also naturalism.
So please stop using science to do in the end philosophy, because what the universe is as independent of your mind is unknown.
That is, how you understand this:
Philosophy of science - Wikipedia
In effect science in this sense is one of many belief systems, which apparently works for the everyday world, most people assume we are all a part of, but it says nothing about what the universe really is.
So you believe in one version of science and I believe in another and they both can't be correct in the end, because in practice they amount to a contradiction of what "essentially", "near certainty" and "OVERWHELMING evidence" in the end signify. To you they apparently in effect mean that you know that the universe is natural. Well, I don't know that. I just believe that.