Compassion and usefulness

A question I ask myself a lot is why? Why do people have such different points of view on the same subject? Why are they willing to side against each other, sometimes even violently, over an intangible thing such as an idea?
One of the things that sparks me a lot is religion. I'm not a religious person, but I try to be respectful of those that are while still being open about being agnostic. I know a great many intelligent, compassionate people who believe in a God who is personal and who directs the flow of the world. I am an intelligent, compassionate person who does not believe in a personal god. Why the difference?
I have a few theories. I could be very mistaken, so take them as a brainstorming session more than a statement of what I feel is right.
Belonging - People like to feel as if they matter. Church is something relatively positive to gather around. Let's face it; many things people gather around (nightclubs, parties, sporting events, concerts) are either impersonal or don't have much in the way of spiritual fulfillment. Nightclubs make me want to gag after about an hour; I love dancing, I hate the meat market aspect. As a society, we don't often get together to be around other people; they just happen to be there.
Purpose - Something I've had to confront as an agnostic is that everything that I love can be taken away for no good reason at all. Just accident, chance, stupid mistake. There's no force to keep that from happening. If you believe in a purpose for everything, then it's easier to believe that there's a meaning in it, that God wanted you to have a different job and that's why you were fired, that God took your mother home to Heaven and that's why you can't have her company here on Earth anymore. It's also damn reassuring to think you have a purpose when you're confronting the vastness of the world and wondering where you're supposed to fit. I think I've written about this before, so I'll leave it at that.
Usefulness - Tied into purpose, usefulness is the feeling of being fulfilled by what it is that you are doing. Not everyone can be famous; I suspect that most people wouldn't like it once they had it. However, there are a great many people with respect and love for those they know because they work hard for their families. God gives you a feeling of usefulness to the world. You can spread his message (or just his love) with your actions. Suddenly everything becomes a way for you to shine, from being patient at red lights to drudging through your job to come home at night and make sure your children are provided for.

These are all the positive things I've seen about religion, and I realize that the good comes with bad; people choose religion to justify their bad behavior, to feel better than other people, sometimes even to actively have enemies and feel morally just in persecuting them. (Don't think that last one is true? Try being an athiest in the South. Or gay. Or even just different.)

I'm searching for why people need God. I suspect it's for these reasons, but also because it's easier than searching out something new. Again, it doesn't make it good or bad; it just is.

Urge

Sometimes the mood strikes me and I just want to get out and do - do what it is that I feel, stop sitting at a desk and working on things that aren't terribly important, just do what my heart desires. Go draw, go write, go dance in the rain, something...
But I realize, even if I go do those things, I still have to be the person who sits at this desk and gets those unimportant things done, and all I've done is delay coming back to it. There's such a thing as bills and credit scores that will always be there past when the feeling is gone.
Even if I pounced on that feeling like a wrestler putting on a half-nelson, I realize that I probably wouldn't know what to do once I'm out there, and the fear will confine me into other things I've already done. Suddenly that feeling would be lost just as surely as if I had sat at the desk, plus I'd have to explain myself, soaked and bewildered, to my coworkers.
But in my heart of hearts, for that one moment, it's the purest burst of passion that I have and I want to keep it, even though it makes the rest of the day drab and slightly uncomfortable like a hard chair or something in your shoe.
Because it reminds me that I'm alive, and I just might have more to give the world than I can accomplish sitting at a desk.

Do you ever wonder?

"I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain."
~Frank Herbert - Dune

We live in a prison of fear. Every day we are told what to fear for us, our families, our children. What would happen if there wasn't an undercurrent of fear in our society? Would we be lawless and amoral? Would we be kinder and more open? What would you do if you had no fear?