I agree that death is strong motivation for most. The fear of nothingness is enough to cause a lot of people to hope for something less dismal.

Profit was an irresistible motivator for Pat Robertson, the Bakkers, Joyce Meyers, Creflo Dollar, Jimmy Swaggart (when he's not paying women to stick spindles up his butt), Marc Alaimo (when he's not molesting children), and quite a few others . . . . .

It's an easy way to gain acceptance and validation.

It makes you feel special. The God of everything is very interested in you personally!

It gives easy answers to difficult questions. People can be very uncomfortable just saying "I don't know".

Don't people like to be part of groups and conform? Isn't it this pack mentality? There was a study done, I think, and if somebody said something that was clearly true and the people around them all disagreed the person that said the true statement will would usually start to doubt themselves (because they want to fit in).

Yeah, like the elevator experiment thing. A group of actors all stand in the elevator facing the back wall. A non-actor walks in, and very often they'll turn round to face the back wall because everyone else is.

People are often easily led and want to fit in.

They don't always fit in my freezer, hence the chainsaw.

The comedian Bill Burr recently made a funny but true point.

We are told when we are young to believe in the tooth fairy, easter bunny and santa claus.  All of them have ridiculous stories of how they deliver their goods for the special occasion.  At the same time we are told equally as ridiculous stories about jesus.  Born to a girl who is a virgin, feeds thousands of people with only a few fish, turns water into wine, walks on water and the most unbelievable comes back from being dead three days later.

Eventually we are told that everyone except jesus does not exist, so we cling on hard to the one fairy tale we have left.  Some people come to their senses on their own but a good majority of americans keep doubling down again and again, to the point if they see the light and say something different, they would look foolish.  Everyone knows us Murican's aint foolish!

Strong certain belief is dangerous. Credulity kills as Sagan said.

And to paraphrase Bertie Russ, the problem with the world is fools are always so certain of themselves but wiser individuals are so full of uncertainty

Aye.

Quote:The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.
— H L Mencken

(May 2, 2015 at 4:29 am)Twisted Wrote: If you read history then so many people have sacrificed their life for religion or a religious cause,so many people have dedicated their life for religious purposes,there have been so many mystics in every religion who were good people,so much deep stuff written about religion and God,why did they never ask the basic question that does God exist or not and were all those religious people and mystics frauds?

The reason is evolutionary. When we are born for the most part we as a species simply swallow what our parents sell us. Religion is an unfortunate outcome of our species flawed perceptions. Religion has the real benefit of creating groups and safety, but unfortunately that gap filling, the dark side of our evolution, causes groups to be pitted against each other. 

The good side of our species is proven by western secular common law that while you cannot completely force religion out of existence, you can get those who follow it to water it down to a civil level. It always takes progressives to drag religion kicking and screaming into modern civility.

As Richard Dawkins noted in The God Delusion.

Quote:But the flip side of trusting obedience is slavish gullibility.The inevitable by-product is vulnerability to infection by mind viruses. For excellent reasons related to Darwinian survival, child brains need to trust parents, and elders whom parents tell them to trust. An automatic consequence is that the truster has no way of distinguishing good advice from bad. The child cannot know that 'Don't paddle in the crocodile-infested Limpopo' is good advice but 'You must sacrifice a goat at the time of the full moon, otherwise the rains will fail' is at best a waste of time and goats. Both admonitions sound equally trustworthy. Both come from a respected source and are delivered with a solemn earnestness that commands respect and
demands obedience.

We see lots of slavish gullibility among the theists around here.  They'd go through goats in no time if they thought yahweh/allah demanded it.