Ah the good old thousand years debate!
Hmm I believe Mypower answered his own question in his original post:
The concept of God has never been proven with proof. It's a belief. Belief - confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof:faith.
You're right: '
belief' and '
faith'. It has nothing to do with 'proof'. Proof is irrelevant. This isn't a science experiment nor a court of law. If a person has belief and faith - they don't need to prove anything.
Why not ask: why do people believe in aliens, when there is no proof? Why Ancient Alien Theory, when that's all based on pseudo-history? Why Scientology, when that's based on science-fiction? Why Mormonism, when that's based on one man's words? There are many people in the world whom all follow those beliefs, and those are all relativity 'modern' religions. Any proof for those?
People want to, or like to feel, part of a group. Whether that's Christian; Hindu; Buddhist; Atheist; Manchester United; Star Wars; Star Trek. For a lot of people they identify with that group more than others out of reasons related to culture, or family tradition. For those types of people it gives them comfort.
For most the obvious reason is spiritual. And a desire that their spirit will live on after death, in some form, whatever that may be. I guess for many people they don't want to feel that their lives are insignificant - like this thread or reply. After all, despite no proof the idea of a god(s) or something more has existed for many thousands of years and will continue in to the future too.
A lot of it is rational and psychology.
I saw this great video recently which isn't about religion but brings up that our motivation affects the way we see reality, despite proof. The video is actually about exploring the idea of dishonesty in society and how our rational makes dishonest people feel like they are doing good things. It does touch on religion and an interesting theory on how the Catholic religion uses the confession box to give people a chance to feel good about themselves by admitting, or confessing, their wrong doings... until they do something bad again. Here's a link, if anyone is interested:
[video=youtube;XBmJay_qdNc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBmJay_qdNc[/video]