The dilemma is that how well educated and skilled at thinking are we when we start asking questions? Do we even understand social influence and peer pressure to believe norms like belief in God? How are we supposed to think we can assess possibilities of iodeas that have no actual facts?
Here is an example, you hear others talk about what they claim to experience and you don't want to be left out. How does a self that wants to fit in and have the same experience as others know if they are having them or not? You're around people who are claiming to have a close, personal relationshi with Jesus, and you don't want to be a fraud. Maybe something's wrong with you because Jesus ain't talking back. Can you consider the possibility (since we are discussing possibilities) that people are mimicking experiences, and in essence creating their own profound experiences, and then convincing themselves theya re authentic? Is it possible? If so, what is the test in reality, and why would anyone risk being disappointed?
We have to be very careful about what we experience. It's not just that we experience something, it is what we impose on experiencing something, and how we interpret it. Here's an example from my own life.
When I was 10 or 11 I was playing outside way after sundown a fall evening. It must have been a Saturday because it was late and we were all outside, maybe 4-6 of us kids. It was clear but no moon, it was really dark. And this was years ago before light pollution was a problem. Anyway someone mentioned they were hearing a hum. Then we all noticed it. We were looking at the sky and couldn't see anything. Then someone noticed that the stars were being blocked out by a large black mass. There was one small light on the bottom. We had all been hearing about UFOs being sighted. We all ran inside and got our parents and most of them came out. More neighbors came outside and we were al standing in the street looking at this mass hover over us. Our parents didn't know what to make of it. We kids were getting a bit upset and excited. It was unbelievable, these things are real. Weve read stories and here is one right over our houses. Someone said we should call the police. This thing was barely moving and radiating this hum. It was pitch black. And then they turned on the GOODYEAR sign.
A god damned blimp. We'd never seen one before. Apparently it was in town for the Chiefs football game the next day.
My point here is that had they not turned on the sign and the UFO just drifted to the horizon I would be certain that I experienced a genuine UFO. This is how we make sense of mundane experiences in ways that create meaning for ourselves. We take scraps of info and we can impose them onto what we observe and experience in a way that distorts the truth. I suggest many religious believers do this. And since so many do this it is mimicked by others, and this infectious mindset spreads as a method. Notice that @Moon said "look around" as if just looking informs us some fact about a supernatural being. It doesn't. Many believers overlay what they assume and want onto observations and experiences so their beliefs are reinforced and justified. I have stopped to look at a sunset and understand the awe that inspires some sort of deep connection. But I reel in the temptation of thinking "God" and enjoy the moment without manufacturing significance to it.
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