One commonly held ideal of a possible good life is one spent in adoration of or service to the Supreme Being. It is hard to believe that the value of… - John Dupré

I should mention the possibility that there are moral rather than empirical reasons that favor religious belief. It is, of course, enormously problematic to offer as a sufficient reason for belief the suggestion that one would be better off believing it. This is generally described as wishful thinking.

The limits of a creature’s consciousness are closely related to its particular set of capacities. As I shall elaborate in a moment, language provides us with an extraordinarily enhanced set of capacities, and consequently with an equally enhanced realm of consciousness. Perhaps this should be seen as a case in which a difference of degree amounts to a difference of kind. But if so, it is crucial to remember, from the point of view of evolution, that a difference in kind can be the summation of many small differences of degree.

Empiricism provides the standard to which beliefs should answer. If we are capable of finding out what kind of world we live in, surely the best way of doing so is through our experience of it.