possible answer to why you should believe

[pocaracas]

Human beliefs are complex.
It is safe to say that most people who believe in the existence of a deity do so out of indoctrination.
But "most" is not "all".

Fear plays a role after the belief takes root.... the fear of what would happen in the person leaves the faith... which then can extend to fear for those who don't believe.... which can then extend to fear OF those who don't believe.

I think you worded that nicely. Atheists who then claim those people are too close minded are too bold with that statement. The fear is well grounded, more so than fear for rats imho. You dont simply convince a theist that he is wrong. You can only hope that indoctrination is slowly declining due to the revolution of hypercommunication that is going on, allowing everyone to see both sides of the coin.

Thank you... I don't always word things nicely, so it's good to know when I do!

Indoctrination is wrong, not only in religion, also in politics and, yes, even science. Certain more advanced parts of science still rely on theories that havent been directly physically been proven (i.e. im thinking of the 4 major forces: gravity, electromagnetic, strong nuclear, weak nuclear). Though students are educated this way and simply see it as truth.
Religion however, is not wrong.

The theories are proven.
What is, sometimes, not fully understood is the underlying cause of the effects you describe in the theory.
The example of gravity is a straightforward one.
Newton described the gravitational attraction between two bodies with mass. That was known as the Newton's theory of gravitation.
Einstein extended this description with his Theory of general relativity.
But none of those explain how gravity comes about. They are merely descriptive.
Now, we have the Higgs Boson attributing mass to particles which, in turn, generates the gravitational field. But how?

These successive refinements of the explanatory capabilities of the theory of gravitation don't detract from the original theory.
We can put a man on the moon using only newton's theory. It's that good.

But it's not enough for other purposes... and, for those, we need further refinements... who knows what the future will bring in that subject?