How do people believe what they believe?

This is intended to be kinds sorta an independant post. It will, to some extent, maybe address some of the things that you have been saying from my perspective.

People formulate their beliefs based on their past experiences. It's a sort of strange loop that is very pro survival. I have an experience, and respond in a particular way, and that stimulus and response is either successful on my part or not, or may have varying degrees of success. I formulate a particular viewpoint, or belief, to use the term of our discussion, about the situation, and use that mental notion to influence my decisions in future actions. Here's where it gets weird for me. That belief doesn't necessarily have to be an accurate or inaccurate reflection of reality to be useful in helping me as an organism formulate a response that is pro-survival. A viking warrior might be utterly convinced that the lightning strike was caused by Thor striking his hammer in the heavens. It doesn't matter that that belief relates to reality or not if it helps him stay in a safe spot during a lightning storm.

The problem comes when our choices for explanations of natural events or occurrences lead us to make wrong or incorrect decisions. In the case of the viking warrior in my example, if his belief leads him to go stand on a large deposit of iron during a lightning storm, his belief will not help him survive any. But usually, it isn't such a stark message of failure. Usually is more of something like "I thought such-and-such, and it didn't work so well. I wonder what went wrong." and we update and revise.

I'm happy for you to believe in the god of the bible if it leads you to correct action in some fashion or other, regardless of whether or not there is any reality in that god. What is correct action? Simply put, in the sense I'm using it here, I mean actions that cause you and/or those in your environment to flourish and prosper. And if believing in the god of the bible does that for you, it is a good thing, regardless of whether or not that god is real.

That's all i have to say for now, friend. sorry it took so long for me to say anything.