To believe or not to believe

Imagine one big white column. That is your religion. That is something that you can define and that you can keep to. It is also something that you can go back and ask for guidance from. It is a reference point.

Why do you need it? So far logic leads to loose strands... It doesn't lead to contradictions but it can lead to self sustaining theories - not quite sure what these are, but they might be along the lines of "I'm one of many therefore I think like the many". Or "everybody before me thought the meaning of life was to have kids, then that's probably the meaning of life", or something along those lines I hope.

The problem with this is that it doesn't keep you from having a self destructing behaviour, it doesn't keep you from making bad decisions aka it doesn't provide a foot-hold. It provides a vast surface of ideas and possibilities but it doesn't provide a reference point. Because of that it's easy to go astray. It's also easy because it 'paves' the way, as in it provides you with an explanation for pretty much any type of behaviour you would wish: "I want to steal" - "it's fine because there are no permanent consequences / higher right or wrong / survival of the fittest"; "I want to smoke" - "it's fine because you'll die anyway / you can control (manage) it".

Logic seems to lead to conclusions such as "There shouldn't be any point to life. All actions that we make are because of how we are (which is why we don't kill ourselves)". It also allows you to do anything, because you can always use the selfish excuse "you're not me, so tough luck".

The question is... is that kind of thinking good? Most likely no... therefore, it might be that the so called 'rational' approach to explaining existence fails. What's needed is something solid, a set of few guidelines that don't need to be supported by rational thought. That is the basis of a religion:

"why don't you steal" : "I believe I shouldn't do it."

"Yes, but nobody is going to know" : "I completely agree that there isn't any logical reason for why I shouldn't do it, but it's against my belief system, therefore I won't do it"

As long as the belief system is small and rigid enough it can act as a very strong personal moral beacon.

Ok so now for the interesting bits:

How do we know the above logic is right? - It seems like choosing religions is much like an 'escape'. Basically we are faced with either being religious and being happy or not using it and feeling depressed. A fighter spirit might be inclined to say "fuck it! let's be depressed"

But we might also have an argument of 'do not doubt yourself' and therefore religion might be the way to go.

Second what to do when somebody interferes with our belief system? Do we act religious? Do we tell them "yes I'm being religious I know, but I can't change my mind?"

Just thought about:

rationality is broken by default when trying to maximise personal gain. Think back to Nash's equilibrium. Rationality doesn't yield the highest payoff. So it might be that when two agents are trying to maximise the outcome of their interaction, rationality might not be the answer.