Why would you want to believe in god?

[TheRealJoeFish]

High Priest: Great Wall of Prophecy, reveal to us God's will that we may blindly obey.
Priests: Free us from thought and responsibility.
High Priest: We shall read things off you.
Priests: Then do them.
High Priest: Your words guide us.
Priests: We're dumb.

- Futurama S4Ep7, A Pharaoh to Remember

[CapnAwesome]

Short of indoctrination and maintaining familial ties, why believe?  Assuming an person has no psychological or developmental disabilities, the lack of evidence, or masses of evidence to the contrary should be obvious.

What keeps an otherwise intelligent adult believing in the supernatural?

It's the power of childhood conditioning. Most people retain most of the beliefs of their parents, whether religious, political or whatever. Religion is even stronger because most people in the world grow up in whole communities where everyone has the same belief. Hard to shake all that for most.

[Nope]

Humans look for patterns so perhaps it is natural for some people to look at random events and try to find an order in them. That might be why some Christians get upset when they are told that atheists don't believe that there is a set meaning to life.

Some people need to feel that something bigger than them loves them for who they actually are. Maybe the belief in a higher power helps them get through whatever darkness that they experience. One of the reasons that I don't try to deconvert people is because I don't know the emotional crutch that god is serving for them.

[Whateverist]

For the same reason one eats CrackerJacks. It's the prize in sdie.

[Pyrrho]

Short of indoctrination and maintaining familial ties, why believe?  Assuming an person has no psychological or developmental disabilities, the lack of evidence, or masses of evidence to the contrary should be obvious.

What keeps an otherwise intelligent adult believing in the supernatural?

I don't think there is any reason for an otherwise intelligent and sane adult to believe in the supernatural that is "short of indoctrination."  I think that is pretty much it for people today, unless they are not intelligent or have not been tolerably educated, or are crazy and hear "god" talking to them.  You will be hard-pressed to find a religious person who was not raised to believe nonsense, and who was taught critical thinking skills, who is reasonably intelligent, and does not hear voices in their head.  I have never met any such person, and I would be very hesitant to believe a story in which someone made such a claim, as there are many religious people who have no scruples about lying to further their holy cause.

[tonechaser77]

I am speaking from indoctrination, even though having now escaped. However I think that if I had converted to Christianity later in life my answer would be the same. 
When I was a christian the thought of Yahweh / Jesus really did comfort me. When I would go through difficult times I would rattle off "yep, god has got it all under control. He has never failed me yet, he'll always take care of me..."  Insert any common phrase. And guess what? I really did feel comforted. I felt comforted because like anything else, when you remove responsibility from yourself and place it on something else (X) it then becomes X's problem not your own. 

I'll use the analogy of an insurance company as old as it may be. Say I live in a flood plain. I get floods from time to time. Without insurance every time we get a heavy rain I will worry about my belongings. The insurance i place my trust in removes that worry, it puts the responsibility on them, not me. 

Anyways, just my take...

[Tonus]

What keeps an otherwise intelligent adult believing in the supernatural?

Narrative.

[Angrboda]

Our brains seem predisposed to benefiting from religious belief and religious ritual. I think it's a mistake to look for 'reasons' why people might convert later in life because reason isn't the main effect religion has upon the brain. It's the non-rational effects of belief and ritual which lead to later life conversion, and trying to explain them with a rational 'story' will just leave you confused. We evolved to attribute personhood to invisible entities in others (minds), why is it so difficult to imagine us using this same skill to imagine invisible entities other than other people? Raising your hands, touching other people, singing, chanting -- all these have profound effects on the emotional environment of the brain. It doesn't take much to see that a brain is going to be attracted to staying where it receives strong emotional stroking, within religion.

[Whateverist]

It may seem sacrilegious and presumptuous to reduce God to a few ornery synapses, but modern neuroscience isn't shy about defining our most sacred notions - love, joy, altruism, pity - as nothing more than static from our impressively large cerebrums. Persinger goes one step further. His work practically constitutes a Grand Unified Theory of the Otherworldly: He believes cerebral fritzing is responsible for almost anything one might describe as paranormal - aliens, heavenly apparitions, past-life sensations, near-death experiences, awareness of the soul, you name it.

http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/7...inger.html

[Pizza]

Short of indoctrination and maintaining familial ties, why believe?  Assuming an person has no psychological or developmental disabilities, the lack of evidence, or masses of evidence to the contrary should be obvious.

What keeps an otherwise intelligent adult believing in the supernatural?

Belief in an anthropomorphic creator and sustainer of the universe has been entangled with belief in a happy afterlife. So, it's wishful thinking and an unwillingness to believe humans aren't the center of the universe.