A reason to believe?

[Caecilian]

Just one quibble to an excellent post, Caec.

Much better to believe in a God and follow a holy scripture.

In fact they believe in a god who understands when they pick and choose out of those allegedly holy scriptures and then, in case both they and god agree that they did something wrong that same god is always willing to "forgive" them because WTF...they are true believers in the first place!

Yeah, point taken. Even the really batshit-crazy 'biblical literalists' cherry-pick like anything. But the cherry-picking is normally done by the sect rather than the individual believer. So I think my main point stands- one of the benefits of belief is that you don't have to work out ethical issues yourself. You can just follow with the rest of the flock.

The 'forgiveness' issue seems to me to be a reason to believe in itself. So continuing my list we have:

5. It feels good to be forgiven. Everyone screws up on occasion, and sometimes people do really bad things. If you're not a sociopath, then chances are you'll feel pretty rotten about yourself. Forgiveness helps- its the balm that soothes our feelings of guilt and shame. If you're an atheist then getting forgiven means apologizing to other people, admitting that you were wrong, or stupid, or acted out of malice. And thats not just difficult- its dangerous. The other person might still be angry; perhaps they won't accept your apology; they could say hurtful things that will make you feel worse.
So why bother? Join the true faith and then you can get forgiven by God. Being all-merciful, he'll forgive you regardless of what you've done. You can clear your conscience in no time without having to deal with actual humans at all.

This seems particularly relevant in the context of the present crisis in the Catholic Church. Lets consider a hypothetical priest- we'll call him Father Paedo. Lets say that, like many priests, the Father has spent most of his adult life raping children, some of whom are now traumatized, angry adults. Now many of Father P's colleagues will view fucking the altar-boy as one of the perks of the job, but Father P is genuinely guilty about what he's done. What are his chances of getting forgiveness from his victims? Pretty much zip I'd say. They want him brought to justice, or possibly lynched. Ah, but GOD is another matter. He'll forgive anything, God will. So Father Paedo confesses his sins, and does his penance, and now he can go about his business with a clean conscience. Everything is okay again.

Lots of children have imaginary friends.

Fear not....you may yet out grow it.

But why outgrow it? I think that we have another reason to believe here:

6. Imaginary Friends are Comforting. Children get to do a lot of fun things that are off-limits to adults- they can make stuff with lego, eat too much popcorn and play on swings and see-saws. And they also get to have imaginary friends- friends who always listen, never argue with them, are supportive all of the time. Jealous of your 3-year-old kid? Wish that you could have an imaginary friend too? Well, you can. Believe in Jesus and you get an imaginary friend with superpowers. Yep, thats right. Not only does your imaginary friend always listen and always forgive, but into the bargain, he's omnipotent. Bet the kiddiewinkles can't top that one!