Hope is the Bait to create True believers,,,

[undergroundpanther]

rabid Belief is NOT a mental illness, it is a CHOICE a chronically insecure and empty person makes to flee from freedom and/or responsibility ,And I add to silence his own insecurity and erase the emptiness..with the Soma called religion.
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Only 144,000 Jews will remain alive after the battle of Armageddon. These remaining Jews - every man, woman and child among them - will bow down to Jesus. As converted Christians, all the adults will at once begin preaching the gospel of Christ. Imagine! They will be like 144,000 Billy Grahams turned loose at once!" -- ~Hal Lindsey
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For many people, the will to believe at times overrides the ability to think critically about the evidence for and against a belief.

"no amount of logic can shatter a faith consciously based on a lie."

The fanatic is perpetually incomplete and insecure. He cannot generate self-assurance out of his individual resources -- out of his rejected self -- but finds it only by clinging passionately to whatever support he happens to embrace. This passionate attachment is the essence of his blind devotion and religiosity, and he sees in it the source of all virtue and strength.... He easily sees himself as the supporter and defender of the holy cause to which he clings. And he is ready to sacrifice his life.

Hoffer also seemed to think that true believers want to give up all personal responsibility for their beliefs and actions. They want to be free of the burden of freedom.

http://skepdic.com/truebeliever.html
http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_q7.html

Going to Jail or being put in a grave would give any true believer waving a gun around being a threat, his heart's desire...

(True believers) They do not really believe in something as much as they believe that they believe. Or they even just wish that they believed. (And then they often wish that they believed even more strongly, with fewer doubts).

They insist that they believe without question, but they will not and can not calmly, rationally, discuss the pros and cons of their beliefs, because that could cast doubts on their "faith". They just won't (and can't) allow any evidence to cast doubts on their beliefs, because if they do, their unexamined (and indefensible) belief structure could well fall apart. So they become dogmatic fanatics who will not tolerate any dissent, or any questioning of their beliefs, or any discussion of other ideas. And they are rarely open-minded to the idea that their beliefs may be less than 100% true.

The religious fanatic, for instance, wants to believe that he has a guaranteed ticket to Heaven, no matter whether he really does or not. He also wants to believe that he has all of the true answers to everything in life — he cannot bear to think that he might be wrong — so he often simply refuses to question his own beliefs.
http://skepdic.com/truebeliever.html

For some people, once the Biblical seed of unreal hope and uncertain fear has been sown, a process of desire, expectation, and imagination begins in the hidden workings of the unconscious mind, in a secret world of mystical ideas, a world of ignorance and enormous possibility.
"if it feels good believe it."
Cram your head full of Biblical mysticism and you'll find yourself with superstitious fears of damnation and a desperate quest for salvation.
http://www.beyondweird.com/occult/notcrst1.html

Fear is the key that fits the lock on the Christian's heart. The more orthodox, or fundamentalistic, the Christian's faith the more this is true. But the fear is almost universally denied by Christians. They cannot admit this fear to themselves for to admit it is to be unsure of one's salvation, a sin. If it weren't for biblical fear the fantastic and unreal hope would soon loose its ability to create an emotional fix. Like any addiction, it's not so much that one feels better with the drug than that one feels terrible without it.

http://www.beyondweird.com/occult/notcrst2.html

[stillcool]

1. I don't know...there are lots of ..

fanatics that are insane. Which came first?