You should believe in God because it benefits you. Our science is too primitive to prove or disprove God’s existence. But the benefit of faith can be tested and proven using the scientific method.
There are 2 great truths regarding humanity. 1) We seek to avoid pain. 2) We seek pleasure. Faith facilitates these pursuits. Absence of faith facilitates nothing. Thus its only logical to pursue faith. Isn’t that why we all come to this Web Page; to look for faith?
You are right, tortoise. Horrible things happened in the name of religion. But let’s make a distinction between public religion and personal faith. There’s good and bad in religions. “Good†helps avoid pain and gain pleasure. “Bad†causes pain or does nothing. If I can avoid more pain and get more pleasure by following a religious tenet, I adhere to it. But if it causes pain or does nothing, I abandon it. Religion sometimes helps me see that an unlikely action nets me a greater gain later on.
…religion uses us: therefore we can use religion for a means to our own fruitful end - I did: until it had no use, but to try and save me from sins that I did not commit 
The Spanish inquisition - and all in the name of religion 
Tortoise,
I base my faith on what is most useful for me to believe. I also base my faith on what I rationally believe is true. We can not prove or disprove the existence of God. It is beyond our ability, and it is useless to explore it. Truth is any belief that keeps me from pain or gives me pleasure. Belief in God passes the truth test. I don’t care if God exists, so long as I get something good out of my faith. Faith is actively built by mental conditioning.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_conditioning
Magsi.
Great way to state the concept! Although I do note a wisp of revenge in your post. Religion, like anything human makes mistakes and people get hurt. But I am just beginning to consider the idea that established religion is how faith evolves. The heritage of the past is given to us in established religions. It has evolutionary dead ends that need to fall away. It is never fun to get hit with an evolutionary dead end.
The catholic faith is based around cleansing us of our sins, and I discarded it when I realised I never had/have any sins to be cleansed of - to sin, and then be cleansed of those sins, isn’t living a moral life by my standards: it allows people to excuse their actions
I want no part in that kind of society!
Thanks for your appreciation of my ramblings, on my non-practiced faith (Catholicism) - having been Christened, made to do my Holy-Communion, and black-mailed into having my Confirmation: I was made aware of what it was all about - it’s a faith that moulded me well, but also forced my hand of cynicism and, yes, slight vengeful nature (f12hte) that I now have - I would say that our Priest, Deacon, Bishop, and Arch-Bishop: were some of the coolest/funniest guys that we’d ever conversed with, and I guess I went through with my Confirmation for them.
I got recognition for being a good Catholic citizen, but I felt trapped within the confines of such a limited construct of being - having said all that: I would bring my children up as Catholics: from the perspective of how it moulds them, but when they start thinking for themselves: they can keep or discard it, if they want (my parents were fine when I did, but I think it’s because they knew that I’d already been brain-washed in the ways of Catholicism, and it was now an intrinsic part of my mentality).
I would say that sin could be defined as willfully harming someone. It often seems like it could serve one’s goals at first blush, but if you consider the consequences out further in time, sin invariably is useless in seeking to avoid pain or attain pleasure. Having said that, I think that we unwittingly hurt people all of the time. Determining whether an action is ultimately useful or useless (good or evil) is somewhere between very difficult and impossible…because it seems that the repercussions of an action never end.
Hopefully, knowledge of the ultimate outcomes of various actions is being encoded into established religion and passed down to help us evolve into a race who knows how to achieve greater happiness (pain avoidance and pleasure attainment).
I am in total agreement with all that - those with lesser consciences never see the harm and pain that they cause to others: with their words and actions - they are in need of salvation: by whatever means neccessary 
What you want to believe has nothing to do with what is true. But I´m sure you´d waiver this charge.
The belief or disbelief in God can both elicit fear or pleasure. It depends entirely on you conception of God.
I may force myself to belief I don´t have cancer of HIV, but in the long run this will probably do me more harm than pleasure.
Besides, is belief as free a choice as you suppose?
We can never prove anything regarding God, his existance or nature. We can only choose what we wish to believe.
Presupposing that we can choose what to believe, it would be irrational to believe something that did not help us avoid pain or get pleasure.
The purpose of established religion is to pass down a heritage of beliefs that ultimately lead to avoidance of pain or attainment of pleasure. What looks good in the near term can be false in the long term. This is why faith has to be actively built and maintained. I do not have a passive concept of faith. I see established religion as an evolutionary vehicle for faith. Like physical evolution, dead ends constantly crop up in the evolution of faith and beliefs must undergo a natural selection - the survival of the pain relieving and pleasure enhancing tenets.
Brainwashing nonwithstanding, faith IS a natural free will choice. If an individual disassociates with the brainwashing perpetrator, the human mind reverts to the great truth of seeking to avoid pain and attain pleasure and constructs a faith to support this endeavor.