Welcome to burger-god. Have it Yahweh! Plato's analogy of the cave comes to mind here (along with its modern metaphor, the "red pill"). People spend their lives trapped by the beliefs they are raised with. It takes a supreme effort of will and personal courage to discard those beliefs we are implanted with as children. Most people don't have that kind of courage. But if you can take that step, you will discover that the world is far more intersting, beautiful, and yes, dangerous, than you had been taught. The probem is that governments WANT people who can be steered by beliefs, without needing proof. We are literally bribed to accept beliefs as the basis for decisions right from childhood (elves, bunnies, & tooth fairies that bring us material goods if we only believe in them, for example). Once such a child has grown up, still ruled by beliefs and not facts, they are adults easy to send off to wars based on beliefs because they have never been taught another way to evaluate the world. It is like the turmoil in the middle east. You have Israel, insisting they own the land because this invisible man who lives in the clouds and speaks only to them told them it was theirs. Then you have the Arabs insisting they own the land because this invisible man who lives in the clouds and speaks only to them told them it was theirs. Toss in a half-dozen "Holy crusades" by the Europeans, insisting they own the land because this invisible man who lives in the clouds and speaks only to them told them it was theirs. The upshot of it all is a lot of killing and destruction, all because of a bunch of old chils-molesters in robes hearing starneg voices in their heads from invisible men. Get the picture? It comes as no surprise that research shows that the tendancy towards religion (and the violence attendant theref to) is linked to a specific genetic configuration in the brain, as are the tendancies towards schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. I suppose that at some time in the ancient past the willingness to follow a priest off of the edge of a cliff might have had some long-term benefit to the species, but in a highly technological age armed with nuclear weapons, fighting each other over whose dieties have the bigger dicks is a dangerous anachronism, as even people who know that there are really no dicks up there can get blown away in the resulting conflagrations.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com

Beliefs are chains that hold free minds slaves. No chain of steel ever bound a human tighter than the chains built of beliefs. Indoctrination, whether religious or political, is done at an early age, when the children still haven't figured out that the big people lie a lot. Those early beliefs become the core of the personality. People's identities form around those beliefs. People BECOME their beliefs. You see very few people saying "I agree with the principles of the Republican party" or "I agree with Christian principles". Instead, you get "I am a Republican" or "I am a Christian". Their identity is that which they believe in. Because of this, any and all questioning of the belief is perceived as a questioning of them as a person, i.e. a personal insult, to be responded to not with logical and rational discourse but with counter-attacks.
  ¶ 1.2.05