> For me, it only developed as a coping mechanism because I was unable to accept the world from a nonspiritual point of view.

Yeah, I found that after some point, after I realized that a strict linguistic (formal) outlook was rigid and unflexible and started to relax about it, that I started to reach into a wider pool of concepts to allow me to make sense of the world.

Also accepting that some beliefs which are not testable by science can still be judged in terms of what do they do for me; do they make me feel good? or bad? do they allow me to engage in actions with postivie outcomes? and so on...