What role do emotions play in terms of what religious doctrine or political ideology one wishes to believe?

There are some belief systems which attempt to base themselves in fact, and add the emotion back in afterwards. One I read recently was "http://edge.org/conversation/beyond-reductionism-reinventing-the-sacred" (which is a small synopsis of a larger work, "Reinventing the Sacred"). It attempts to view Materialism through the lens of creativity and complexity instead of reductionist science, and in doing so attempts to bridge the gap between materialist and pluralist philosophy. For most assertions, the author is careful to use complex systems research as a basis. Of course - as in all work - a confirmation bias is evident in places, and ongoing research will certainly provide a clear refutation some day (if it hasn't already). There are no true fact-based belief systems if we are to take a very literal interpretation of the word "fact", but we can use a softer interpretation such as "the cutting-edge of human knowledge" to demonstrate that even a near-perfectly informed superintelligence would still have a bias - perhaps one based in emotion. This begs the question, what is emotion anyways? For the Superintelligence it would be the ordering of value judgments based on information. Ultimately, humans do the same thing. Any given belief system is an expression of the values we hold; values in fact, in fiction, in romance, in truth, in lies. It is not the presence of emotion that bothers me in some belief systems, it is the presence of values which attempt to mimic entropy - those belief systems which attempt to destroy, divide, and decay. In my humble opinion, there is no better goal for humanity than to creatively fight disorder, and yes, this is an emotional appeal.