Having a strong religious belief is like having a large penis. It is nice to be proud of it but not nice to go waving it about in public.
Faith in God is typically absolute, and either you believe or you don’t believe, and almost nothing anyone can say or do will change your mind. Of course, I will admit, some believers do become non-believers due to witnessing events or happenings that are significantly dispiriting enough to shake their faith
As to non-believers becoming believers, probably the only thing I know that can make a believer out of a non-believer is witnessing something they perceive to be a miracle, and there just aren’t too many of those going around.
Oh, I am sorry, you believers will say there are miracles all around us. Human life the animals, the plants, the whole Universe, all those things are miracles. Or are they. Maybe they and we are just a big science experiment that some superior beings are conducting or maybe it is all an accident or just a natural cyclical progression? Who knows? The only true questions are, how did it all start, what started it, and for what reason?
So, why is there this unrelenting belief in a caring God or Gods? In earlier times and even now in the uncivilized world it is simply because people cannot explain all the things around them and the uncertainty of things like life, death, personal success, and the weather. They believe that there must be something all-knowing and powerful out there and they hope or believe they can influence it with their prayers, devotion, and sacrifices (personal, animal and in some places, even still today, human).
Nowadays, civilized people have faith mainly for one of three reasons or a combination of those: 1) Probably the most prevalent is that you were brought up to believe in God, and nothing has happened significant enough in your life to shake that faith. 2) Life for you or the world around you is crappy, and you have to believe there must be a divine purpose to it all. 3) You believe or want to believe in heaven and hell, that no matter how bad things are for you here in this life, that If you are good, you will go to heaven, and things will be so much better for you there. Or maybe the opposite, and you will go to hell.
And why is there, non-belief? It could be again how you were raised or as I said, it might be because the non-believers have not witnessed what they view as a true miracle and/or they just don’t believe in the God of the Bible, the Torah or the Koran, the “benevolent” caring God. Why with all the horrors and the mass sufferings of this world such as wars, genocide, famines,and pandemics should a person believe in a benevolent God? Surely all those people that died or suffered were not bad and deserved their fate.
Well, then, is there a big difference between those that believe and those that don’t? Not that I can tell. Look around you; I don’t see any difference. Other than following the Golden Rule, what else is there that is important, that is unless you happen to be a masochist.
