system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[BSG reimagined]What are cylons really?

I'm watching the reimagined series. And I'm getting more and more confused with the cylons.

Were they originally an AI 'species' developed by humans that rebelled?  
When they rebelled, how smart was the average cylon?  
Were there models that could think on the level of humans?  
What made them rebel?  
The 'skin jobs' or numbered cylons are new, as in they weren't made by humans. But Cylons are apparently unable to make new models, only able to clone the existing skin jobs and tin cans/raiders. Where did the skin jobs come from?

What is their obsession with religion? Is this some part of their programming?
gpt
There are two sets of cylons. You have the hardware type cylons, these are the more robotics, metal centurions and raiders. They originally had circuits and microprocessors just like you'd expect of a computer. Their AI was incredible advance, it was actually based off profiling humans and using that profile combined with an advance processing chip to produce human like individuality. 

These "centurions" were all based on the same, original human profile. This human was radical in her religious beliefs and believed in the "One True God", rather than the more prolific polytheistic religion that dominated in the colonies. As these cylons became integrated into society, they continued to believe in their OTG and would actually worship in churches. 

Eventually, the cylons rebelled against their human overlords, leading the Cylon War. During the war, the cylons began experimenting with more biologically based hardware. These new forms would have less mechanical and cybernetic internals and would appear to resemble other biological species. 

Eventually, five humans from Earth had made their way back to the original colonies. Earth humans had already developed articifial biological forms that would more exactly resemble their more natural human counter parts. The most significant advantage of these advancements was that they could effectively be immortal through the technology of "Resurrection" that would upload one's consciousness to a new body at the point of death. However, the Earth humans also had their own internal war between their "Cylons" and humans that lead to total destruction, except for the five who escaped.

These five Earth humans made contact with the Cylons and they traded the technology to perfect their biological forms and Resurrection in exchange for ending their war with the humans. The Cylons accepted and the war came to an end.

This lead to the creation of new Cylons that were biological in nature. 7 new Cylon models were created, although their were thousands of each model and each individual Cylon was a free thinking individual like any human.

Why did the colonial Cylons rebel? It was most like a combination of a war for freedom as well as a war of religion and ideology. The humans were blasphemers who believed in their fake gods and denied the OTG. Also, the humans were their slave-masters. The second war was caused by one of the Cylon leader's, First, hatred of humans and his own biological limitations. Since humans ultimately made him, he resented his creators.

The Cylons can't create new models because they don't fully understand the Resurrection technology. First killed the Earth humans after the seventh model and messed with their memories after resurrection so that they would live among the humans. However, First did so before they revealed all the secrets to Resurrection. Without these secrets, the Cylons could not create new models or even recreate their Resurrection Hub when it was destroyed by the Cylon rebels and Galactica's fighters during their Civil War.

The new Raiders are a hybrid of the Cylon's original research into creating biological Cylons and the Resurrection technology. Which is why they are able to resurrect. However, they are not as advance as the human form Cylons, as seen by their lack of representation among the leadership. The Centurions are like the Raiders as well, but without the Resurrection ability. But they are at least as advanced/free thinking as the original Cylons when their brain functions aren't being inhibited.