At the Global Atheist Convention Richard Dawkins concentrated on the theme of gratitude and its ability to be targeted against non-entity. Being grateful for existing has no real person to be grateful to and appears to be one of the things that can reinforce the imaginary entities known as gods. Gods give us something to be grateful to.

It occurred to me that a number of other emotions can have misplaced objects. I was remembering a video I saw in the days before youTube of a guy at work losing it with his PC and smashing it to pieces. Its very funny. It also raises the question of why he was angry with an inanimate object. The PC could not react to the anger, could not make amends or cower. I bet this kind of thing has reinforced many beliefs in spirits and malevolent entities within the inanimate.

Justin Barrett's hyperactive agency detection device springs immediately to mind.

From the beginning of a paper describing Justin Barrett's HADD:

General questions
Is the tendency to perceive agency where there is none a prerequisite for religious
thought? Does it help the acquisition or transmission of religious concepts?

from: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~theo0038/pdf%20files/HADD.rtf.pdf

Barrett's book is available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Anyone-Believe-Cognitive-Science-Religion/dp/0759106673