I spent a long time in the RC Church not taking a lot of it very seriously, but not leaving because of the need to feel connected to the community. The local bishop started pushing his weight around on a number of issues while ignoring some serious problems. I came to realize that he was mouth-piece for a Church with a lot of fundamental problems which if I stayed associated with I was tacitly endorsing. People do stay though some believe, some submit, and reportedly some work for change. The change I've seen in the Church is the conservatives making it more tribal, fearful, and angry. I recognize that people don't necessarily need to believe what their church says they believe but it became a problem for me and mine.

RCs are organized a little different than the Protestants, who hire and fire their preachers, and own their church.

If someone didn't subscribe to all the statements of the leaders of a sect (at least in terms of defining the sect), wouldn't it, by definition, make them a non-member of that sect? Like a Christian not believing that JC is the son of god?

Not when the Church is the town's social center, remember I was talking about rural. Strict adherences to all the teachings is optional for anyone, you can pick and chose what you accept as "gospel".

Sounds like there are multiple aspects to "religion" or "church". One is the social aspect, which requires no faith and only the outward appearance of "belief", like participating in rites. To me, that has nothing to do with faith.

What you said certainly didn't come from what I said. "Abrahamaic religions" is hardly a "particular sect".

Few religions fail to put humanity in a central place in the universe. The idea that Jesus was God who incarnated and died for the benefit of humanity is more than something a leader of a sect said, it's fundamental to most of Christianity (which covers most of the rural Americans being discussed).

You don't need faith to believe in something greater than oneself. Most things are greater than oneself in one way or another. Humanity only stands out when it comes to cleverness. You don't need failth to think there are probably things out there more clever than the smartest human. You only need faith when you start assigning particular attributes to them, like "created the universe", or "cares what I do or think", or "is aware of my existence".

True, attending church functions is no guaranty of faith, especially in more isolated areas with limited social options.

If you believe that thing exists but can't prove it, aren't you taking it on ...faith? Aren't you making the assumption that everyone that believes there is a God, assigns him/her those same attributes that are taught by the church hierarchy? That's what I was taking about, people doing their own thing.

No, I can see many of them. All I have to do is decide what I mean by "greater" at the moment. The Sun is the source of almost all our life-sustaining energy, and the Earth is the source of almost all of the rest, as well as the setting of the vast majority of everything we know. And any number of countless stars could have it all again, but different.
No, that's why I mentioned some pretty basic attributes that have nothing to do with the church hierarchy. And even then, I said "like". If you believe in God, but assign no attributes to it whatsoever, that seems indistinguishable from not believing in God.

From the original post, we would have to assume that faith is necessary to altruism. Is this really the case?

OK, I get it. You simply accept what you observe without taking the next step. That's cool.You gave a laundry list of attributes. What I'm saying is people are free to pick and choose from that list, or come up with their own. What they have faith in, exactly, is seldom discussed except in theology classes/forums/discussions. I've never seen anybody give their neighbors the third degree on Sunday morning, as church is more of a social gathering in rural America.

I doubt it, and in some many cases the opposite is true. Assholes like Fred Phelps, for example.

The short answer to the OP title is, "Yes. Because man is a social animal."

Try sometime imagining a capital-G God for an asocial animal. Say, leopards.

Who can limn the leopards' God?

I think it would be more accurate to say that we are wired with pattern-making brains that see the world as cause-effect. For early humans, many of the things that mattered to them (weather, season, crop yield, reproduction) were the result of non-observable forces. In that scenario, they created a narrative that fit the pattern, a cause for the observed effect.

Here's something I heard almost every Sunday from my pastor brother....it takes more FAITH to believe there is no faith, than to just just have FAITH in the first place...

I never did fully understand that...maybe someone here can enlighten me.

It sounds like the old: better believe it IN CASE it's true. Which is not really faith or belief at all. I mean, if there IS a god, he's probably onto that ploy, and has Great Disdain for lip service. ;)