God was created to fill the gap that some adults have when they realize they are accountable for their own actions.
When you're a kid, your parents are watching out for you and responsible for you. Growing up, leaving the nest... it can be frightening for some people to realize that they don't have that safety net.
Inventing the idea of god is comforting, because now that adult can sit back again and know that there is still someone in that parental role.
There are different personality factors that are identified as being significant contributors to risk when flying. Some of them are obvious, like machismo, but others are less apparent yet insidious. Specifically, 'resignation'. A person who exhibits this trait goes through life not feeling that they are actually in control of anything, and 'whatever happens, happens'. There's no real difference between that and 'it's god's will', so there's a pathology associated with certain elements of religion as well.
The first group, the parent-replacement people, they can function effectively in society and it doesn't matter if they believe that some guy with a beard spoke to Adam and at the moment of life, like on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, spoke with a booming voice and said 'pull my finger'. The ones that I worry about most are the ones who exhibit the traits of resignation. Some of them just sit back and wait for life to happen, but some of them... some of them are ACTIVELY resigned, and go out and push the 'will of god' as they see it on others. Everything from working to have religious doctrine made law to crashing planes into buildings.
