Qui bono si Deum esse?

I have lately been contemplating a question about God and God's existence. I have not been contemplating whether or not God exists, but rather whether or not it matters if God exists. This train of though has been fueled by my constant interaction with Agnostics/Atheists as well as reflections on Pascal, Feuerbach, Heidegger and Dostoevsky.
To begin with, one must first understand how exactly this question is different than "Does God exist?" For starters, this question is not changed by the actual answer to that question, but the answer that we personally give this question does affect whether or not we think that it matters. Secondly, this question is a much more advanced one than the previous, and if one contemplates the latter rather than the former, he will achieve a greater understanding of not only human nature, but also the mechanics of religion, philosophy, and especially ethics.
To answer the question, we must ask what many cultured critics of our time have come near, but few have ever really grasped. We must ask the merits of the current system of beliefs across the globe and what would be the alternate (ie, if religions and philosophies of today were non-existent, what would be the effect?). Many critics proclaim boldly that religion is a blight and that humanity would be much better without it. Many state that religions provide faulty ethics and a faulty reasoning for accomplishing ethics. Many attribute the majority of conflicts to religious differences. So, to ask whether it matters if there is a God is to directly focus on these accusations and the overall consequences of siding one way or another.
Let us first remember that religions have been around for a very long time. Where there have not been "religions," there have been philosophies. This is still true today. The men and women who decry organized religion often ally themselves with some form of a philosophy, though we often don't recognize it since they are not preaching in the agora. Thus, they are still holding onto a set of beliefs. However, rather than asserting divine knowledge they assert some other principle, logic, for example, or scientific discovery, or simple observation or something else. Often, these people fail in similar ways to the fundamentalists and extremists of religion, and don't quite follow the tenets of their beliefs, but this will be addressed later.
As far as ethics go, one has to realize that our sense of ethics is, very much, derived from our culture and our religions and philosophies. In fact, to attack religion full on for it's ethics causes a logical contradiction. For most people who condemn the ethics of religions must take a morally relativistic stance, considering by their own words they don't stand behind a specific creed or guided set of principles, yet in this same stance, they cannot take a position against such sets of principles without betraying the single ethical idea of relativism, namely that nothing is wrong. However, it is also the case that to attack religion for its use of eschatology as a way to moderate ethics is also to take a stance more on religion's turf than one realizes. For the idea that "virtue ought to be done for the sake of virtue" is an Aristotelian idea, an idea which in the West was translated by one St Thomas Aquinas, patron saint of philosophers, theologians, universities and students. Even its promulgation today was a result of Catholic scholars in the early twentieth century returning to Thomistic Philosophy. Thus, even in condemning religion for eschatology, critics must borrow from religion to do this.
To think of all conflicts as arising from religion is plain ignorant. I have stated my reasons for thinking this way before, and to save space, I will simply state that many conflicts, especially wars in the previous 300 years, have had no religious component whatsoever, and those which did, were wars that were specifically twisted in order to appeal to the religious of an area. Wars have been fought for millenia.
So now that I've addressed several criticisms against the idea of the existence of God, or at least religion, I shall try to answer the main question of this post. It seems to me that it does not matter whether or not God exists. For if God truly does exist, then a lot of people have been right about a lot of different things. However, if God does not truly exist, then our sense of ethics, our ideas of compassion, etc, are pointless and nullified since it all amounts to nothing in the end, yet it still provides those who live religious lives a sense of fulfillment and happiness. Nietzsche said that Christian ethics were made up and derived, but he admired how effectively they worked, even so much that "the great politicians of Germany, brutes and terrible men, call themselves Christian." Feurbach himself saw that Christianity, though he had no faith in it, provided a means for relieving alienation that people feel, a way to feel real love and give us an ultimate example in Jesus for us to follow. Heidegger saw the lack of faith that humanity was experiencing and the consequent loss of humanity and famously said (as I have quoted multiple times) "Only a god can save us."
Though Pascal often gets a bad reputation from cultured critics, and is highly misinterpreted even among theists, his so-called "wager" lays out a fairly summary argument for the case. If there is a God, then righteous and virtuous behavior (and most certainly belief) can only do one good in the hereafter. If there is no God, and we cease to exist with death, then Christian living can do no harm to us.
Of course, Pascal was a notorious Jansenist who believed God would be angry at sinners. The average Christian, and especially Catholic, of today would not share the same sentiments as Blaise Pascal. Furthermore, the issue is even further complicated with globalization and the knowledge of other religions and their doctrines, practices and ethics. This, however, is a much different question from whether or not God exists, as well as whether it matters. The reality is that living a life that is truly in line with what one's faith teaches them is not only good in the sense of Christian and most modern understanding of good, but is also the easiest way to promote peace and unity.

Pride

"Proud to be an American," "The power of pride," "school pride," "gay pride," "national pride," "I'm proud of you," etc. The word pride, and it's variation proud, are often thrown about in colloquial conversation, as if something laudatory. We use the word pride often to describe something that we see as praiseworthy, such as when we say "I am proud of you," of "I am proud that..." However, I have come to the conclusion that either we greatly equivocate with the word "pride" or else we don't understand the true nature of the word pride.
For the sake of having something to write, I will assume that pride is often glossed over as being something more benign than it is. St Augustine, in the City of God, describes pride as the first sin, occurring almost simultaneously with creation (the full explanation takes care of the "God creating evil dilemma). Pride is also described as being the mother of all sins and the greatest of all sins by him.
Augustine's definition of pride was simply, "putting oneself before God." By this he means that in any instance, whether it be honor, devotion or service, we render to ourselves before we render to God, the universe, or else our fellow humans.
Later on, St Thomas Aquinas would list his "Seven Deadly Sins," a list of what he conceived to be the most vicious sins. The list includes several instances of pride, especially vanity. By applying Augustine's definition, we realize that not only vanity, but also at least gluttony, lust, sloth, greed and envy are also applicable, since they all depend on one putting himself above others.
Jesus says that the greatest commandment is to "Love God with all your heart, and the second is like unto it, thou shalt love your neighbor as yourself." Thus we can see that the commandment of Jesus Himself is a direct opposite to the demand of pride. If we love God with all our hearts, and our neighbors as ourselves, we no longer have the desire to put ourselves above either one of them.
But aside from theological talk, I must make a personal confession. I have found for myself that the time when I am the absolute most miserable is when I think I am not getting what is due to me. Whenever I get self-centered I never find myself being satisfied, but rather, being upset at what I have been given and what I perceive that I am missing.
On the contrary, the rare occasions where I find myself being generous, charitable and humble, I find myself more happy than any other time.
I have also noticed this quality in a lot of my family and friends. They're never happy when they think about themselves and what they think they ought to have. I've seen plenty of family torn apart because rather than loving people for who they are, they prefer to try to impose their own personality upon others. I have seen friends grow apart when one has had to call the other to reckoning and the other, in his or her own pride, has been loath to do so, or to admit that he or she does not have the ability to repay the debt.
Truly, pride is the most divisive vice there is. If there is a more destructive sin, I don't know what it could be.
Thus we're stuck in a bit of a contradiction. When we think of ourselves as being all-important, we exhibit hubris, one of the ugly heads of pride. However, it is against our nature and our experience to think in terms of anything besides ourselves. Thus, we get a plethora of philosophies and theologies that try to combat this problem. Even the scientifically based proposition that since humans are a relatively young species, on an infinitesimally small sphere in the vast universe, we are nothing, is itself based on a philosophy not unlike Nihilism. Platonism, Stoicism, and Aristotelianism all try to deal with overcoming the problem of pride, but they all also stop short of their mark, in that they are unable to show what else we should venerate (Platonism and Aristotelianism both advocate philosophy, but does not philosophy serve the needs of man? Stoicism takes the Nihilistic approach).
Theologies, on the other hand, get closer to dealing with this problem. Paganistic rites have always maintained that the gods need appeasing in order to take care of our problems, thus, in order to actually help ourselves, we need to do homage and sacrifice to them. Buddhism and Hinduism maintain that since we are reincarnated after death, we must respect all animals in order to bring about good Karma and to show respect to those which may be our ancestors. Zen teaches that the universe is nothingness, thus, one must only learn to respect the emptiness of the universe.
Monotheism, on the other hand, proposes that there IS a God, and that this God does have power over all things. There are various strains among the Judaism, Christianity and Islam which maintain that it is necessary to try to win God's favor, and thus, supplication and humility must be shown to God in order for blessings to be poured out to theists.
Christianity, specifically the versions of it that I find more orthodox, realizes, with a sort of Nihilistic understanding, that there can be no true prayer but, "Thy will be done." If God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, then our supplications will not sway God unless God specifically wants our supplication. Furthermore, if bad things happen to us, they are likely, "God's will," or in other words, a lot of times out of our hands to do change.
It is important to note, however that Christianity should not become nor be confused with stoicism, wherein the highest virtue is apathy and the virtuous man realizes that he cannot avoid all the things that happen to him in life. Christianity believes that in the end, the way a man lives his life will affect his eternal destiny. Thus, a man may not have control over some of the good and bad things that happen to him, but he can decide how to respond to them, and he can demonstrate by his faith and (to me, more importantly) his ethics that he is a good person. Thus, he must pay homage to God first of all, for the good Christian understands that he is truly nothing, that God is everything, and that without the intervention of God Incarnate he is damned, but he also knows he must live a Christian life or he loses all of that.
In my estimation, the reason why this theology is superior is because it puts humanity necessarily in debt to God for something God has already done and that man must try to earn back. There is nothing like servitude to bring about a humble and pride-less attitude.