As a rather unconventional self-identified Christian, I will post some thoughts here.
First of all, in order to get to faith you have to accept that belief in God is essentially superstitious -- one must embrace this, rather than run from it. From a purely scientific standpoint I own that there is little reason to believe or not believe; but unlike other beliefs, one is allowed to believe what one wants in this area because of the nature of the question.
This sounds about right, and it's very unfortunate that modern society insistently tries to instill running away from "superstition" inherently.
The second point is that the reasons for believing are essentially rooted in emotion rather than reason. This is by no means a bad thing-- without emotion, people would not be people. Computers can reason better than humans in some ways, but they aren't given rights because they lack emotion. Emotion is a valid determinant of both thought and action.
I mean yes and no, if something occurs and you cannot explain it by what you know in a physical way, is it not then an act of reason to reason out that reason must give way to emotion? And if there is a consistent answer that does not follow more earthly logic, would that not be based out of reason too?
Once these two points are accepted then the primary barriers to religious belief are overthrown. Belief in God must occur because no other human concept to date captures a certain range of rare but emotional experiences that people have. The experiences range widely, but one example is the idea of Speaking to the Dead or the notion that the Dead Are In Heaven. Other examples are alluded to by words such as sacred or sanctity. Or for example, when you hear people say, "I am not a religious person, but God, if you're listening..."
Fair enough.
The nature of belief in God, consists of knowing that by believing, one is better able to express and understand one's own emotional experiences. That being said, in order for God to match its emotional purpose it must be crafted carefully. The decline in religion today is because most religions have failed to do this. For example, if one believes that God approves of or causes all events in the world then when something bad happens, you suffer all the worse for not only did the bad thing happen, but God approved of it. These problems are unresolved by religions of today.
Two things. The first, belief in the supernatural of any sort has always had ebbs and flows...today is simply an ebb...but there will likely be another "Great Awakening" at some point, which will see a great rise of all sorts of creeds. When? No idea. The exact catalyst? Who knows. But it will happen eventually.
Secondly, this kind of reasoning bears out
because of the in-built preference today to run from "superstition" inherently. This means when forced to reckon with such a thing, suddenly God [or whatever supernatural deity/force here] has to approve only the good things, as you want it to transpire...otherwise why bother. This however forgets one important angle, "The Lord works in mysterious ways", and that instead of cursing the bad events, figure out the bigger picture [I'll grant that one doesn't need a God to do this, but the process is definitely much simpler with it].
