First, you know, a new theory is attacked as absurd; then it is admitted to be true, but obvious and insignificant; finally it is seen to be so impor… - William James

Since belief is measured by action, he who forbids us to believe religion to be true, necessarily also forbids us to act as we should if we did believe it to be true. The whole defence of religious faith hinges upon action. If the action required or inspired by the religious hypothesis is in no way different from that dictated by the naturalistic hypothesis, then religious faith is a pure superfluity, better pruned away, and controversy about its legitimacy is a piece of idle trifling, unworthy of serious minds. I myself believe, of course, that the religious hypothesis gives to the world an expression which specifically determines our reactions, and makes them in a large part unlike what they might be on a purely naturalistic scheme of belief.

Wherever you are it is your own friends who make your world.

It is true that we instinctively recoil from seeing
an object to which our emotions and affections are committed
handled by the intellect as any other object is handled. The first
thing the intellect does with an object is to class it along with
something else. But any object that is infinitely important to us and
awakens our devotion feels to us also as if it must be sui generis and
unique. Probably a crab would be filled with a sense of personal
outrage if it could hear us class it without ado or apology as a
crustacean, and thus dispose of it. “I am no such thing,” it would
say; “I am MYSELF, MYSELF alone.”
The next thing the intellect does is to lay bare the causes in
which the thing originates. Spinoza says: “I will analyze the actions
and appetites of men as if it were a question of lines, of planes,
and of solids.