It might not always be about belief or disbelief. There are a multitude of mysterious and eerie things that are not understood. Instead of praying to a personal God you could just think positively and with hope and courage, not knowing or understanding what is behind it all.

Consider the Shaman, or the people who came up with Kosher and Halal, to have been the scientists of their time. These rules for living were based on the tools of measurement available in the moment. People Improvised!

And science does so today, though our processes have become more refined confirmable. The search for knowledge is ongoing, and the current state of the art in science isn't the end of it either.

In fundamentalism, the search for knowledge is (at least claimed to be) halted. That's a bit different; because it is the end of progress.

We all have emotional crutches; and I see prayer as one of them. When someone requests prayers from me, I offer to hold them in my heart and also if there are medical issues, to offer myself as a lay researcher if I feel it could be helpful. I don't want to trample on their patterns of support, nor lie.

There are two questions here, 1 the utility of religion, 2 is religion actually true, the first question, in the hands of the the right person religion can off course be a big help and comfort to a lot of people but in the wrong hands can be very dangerous.2 It seems obvious to me religion is man made, to say I believe it just in case it's true is to lie to one's self

You believe what you believe. It's not easy to change. That's one of the flaws with Pascal's famous wager. If you believe in God and are correct you get rewarded forever, of you don't and are wrong then you get punished forever. Let's say I was convinced. I might tell everyone that I believe in God but in truth I'm only pretending to hedge my bets on an afterlife. Would an all seeing God with his arbitrary rules be more interested in, what I really believed or the lies I told about my belief. Truth is no-one really knows and that's the other flaw.

Well, when people believe in those things it actually gives them a bit of extra strength. It's a bit of a placebo but it works for them. If you don't, simply deal with the situation the best you can.

Try Buddhist. They teach you to take from inside yourself.

What is spiritual? Ask many people and get many different results.

According to Jung et al, the subconscious deals in symbols rather than literally. Others say that it is also very naive and uncritical. So ... you can "lie" to yourself and leverage this. For example I have a daily walking regime (at least in decent weather) and I often don't want to walk. I'll tell myself that I'll reward myself with coffee and donuts at a Dunkin Donuts near the end of my walk. I will allow myself to look forward to it. But at the end of the walk I have just 10 minutes to go and invariably say, nah, not going to do it, and just finish my walk.

And weirdly this self head fake works, time after time, even when I know full well I have no real intention of following though (your mileage may vary!)

I suppose that much of religion works this way as well. For example in my religious daze, if something -- perhaps illness, say -- threatened a loved one, I used to pray about it and "give it to god". I knew on a not very deep level that I couldn't really count on god to actually do anything about it. And I was eventually to learn this in very overt and practical ways, too, through the suffering and death of loved ones. BUT, it felt psychologically good; it was a way to release anxiety on the pretext that Someone was taking care of things that were beyond my ken. And today as an unbeliever I sometimes miss that a little bit. Perhaps my wife tells me she's depressed or frustrated and my role is just to helplessly listen and I miss that device of "letting go and letting god" -- or leading others to do so. A little bit. Just a little bit.

Maybe this now-foreclosed ability to let god do my worrying is connected to this ability to head-fake myself with an empty promise of reward if I finish an unpleasant task. Perhaps it is a personal talent. But I suspect it's more universal than that, if not as strong in everyone.

I asked the same question a different way a while ago.
I don't think it's possible to believe something you know isn't true
That's absurd.
But many people truly believe things OTHER people know aren't true, and they SHOULD know we aren't true as well.
That happens all the time.
When given a choice between two equally believable things, I will choose to believe the option most beneficial to me.
Even if the most beneficial thing is slightly less believable, I'd want to believe it SO MUCH I probably would.

..sounds like living a lie.. from here...

I will let it go, live and let live.

Sounds a little like Pascal's Wager.
I wonder where the benefit ceases, when too many oblige what is not true.
I think that describes the present world actually.