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Tenspace wrote
At this point, I would expect the resident psychiatrists and psychologists to chime in.
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I've already told anon to shut her pile hole. What else do you want?
Manics who believe in God often experience 'personal communication' with their particular God. Similar traits are seen with schizophrenics (child and adult onset for both disorders). In these cases, the underlying beliefs of the affected are made manifest by their hallucinations. These are often self feeding, and increase with time.
As for 'regular' theism, I don't consider it to be a psychological disorder (likewise, there is now 'theism' criteria on the DSM-IV-TR), but rather a result of the normal socialization process. When everyone around you believes X, you will probably end up believing X as well. With large numbers of people saying one thing, people tend to nod in compliance, even when they believe it's wrong (and even to the point of beleiving it's right). For example, you can convince a person that two lines of unequal (clearly) length (about 75 vs 100) are actually equal. Even when later questioned individually, they will maintain that the lines are the same length.