Why Belief Is Important.

One commonality modern-day religions have (for the most part) is the 'need to believe' requirement. Christianity for example, requires belief in their religious dogma; it is believed that people whom do not, get to have fun playing in a lake of fire (love thy neighbor, unless they disagree with you). What a great bargaining chip: "believe what I tell you, or face the worst imaginable form of torture, for an infinite amount of time". Christians seem to think (or any similar religion, in respect to the 'belief' aspect) that belief is the most important requirement, but they provide no justification for it.

Few disagree with the notion of scripture coming from humans (the disagreement is whether there was divine inspiration involved). If humans do something, they will naturally have human motivations. The primary human motivation is power (When I say "power", I am referring to wealth, and control over people). The best way to get power is to make people believe you are powerful. If people do not believe you are legitimate, you have no power over them (which is why religions like Christianity try to portray nonbelievers as being bad). It's all about what is beneficial for the religion (referring to the organization). If a religion doesn't require a person to believe it is true, then the religion will have nowhere near the power it could potentially. 

There is zero evidence for any god, but lets say hypothetically there was a god. If this god wanted people to know about him/her, it would have no trouble doing so (most gods are very powerful). It is clear that no god desires people to know about their existence (that or there is no god, which is more likely the case). But religion tries its hardest to make people think they need to believe, otherwise, they (the source of religious ideas) do not have as much power. Belief is important for a religion, there is no reason to suggest why it would be important for a god (if anything it is the opposite). If a religion was truly legitimate, it would be more focused on being nice to others, as well as how to get enjoyment out of life. Instead, it is fixated on requiring people to believe in the validity of stories, written several millennia ago. These old stories are what give religion its power.