Thanks for your posts. A breath of air!
Forgive me in answering if I repeat some of what you've already said. I'm not trying to usurp you, I just need to complete the sentences :-)
to believe, that is to be compelled to hold something as true in the mind, it would science and philosophy and basically anything that someone holds true and, importantly, universal.
Also: hold something without evidence. Most religious beliefs fall into that category, if not all.
Also: not necessarily compelled by any means. Most belief is wholly voluntary. Don't assume that young children are necessarily compelled either. If they imitate it usually wears off fairly quickly as they mature. The believing mind is usually a personal trait and can last a whole lifetime. If one belief fails another quickly replaces it, as in those people who are Christians one minute, Buddhists the next, and then go to India to find salvation under a guru, or take up atheism. Atheism is an ideological stance; it's an 'ism' like any other.
science is its own belief system
I'm glad you said that because it's true. One forgets that a mind can be equally as conditioned by 'science' as it can by religion or anything else; a conditioned mind is a conditioned mind. As everything is seen, explained and justified because the Bible, for example, says so, so everything can equally be so justified because science has said it. It's very evident in the replies to questions, like the demanding of evidence in those areas where science, when challenged, has no answer.
This is not to say that science isn't more reliable than religious belief but only in matters of material testability. There it should be listened to but in other matters, particularly those of the fundamental questions of existence, the fact is they don't know.
philosophy have the best grasp of the problem
I wouldn't say even that, I'm afraid. ALL our endeavours are limited, all of them. Whether it's philosophy, religion, science, logic, mathematics, anthropology, psychology, anything you like, such separate branches of knowledge only provide partial knowledge. It's also true that trying to fit all the partial answers together to make a whole doesn't work.
To approach something whole and unknown requires a whole mind in a state of unknowing. Don't say I'm going back to mysticism, I'm not, but this is very, very simple and logical. A limited mind, a mind filled with, and conditioned by, various sorts of specialised knowledge, can't do it. The mind cannot see the unknown unless it is free of knowing. Nor can it perceive a totality as long as it is a partial mind. This is factual.
The question then is whether it's possible for the mind to be whole and in a state of unknowing. I say that it can, and probably quite easily. Much easier than spending years and years in the pursuit of particular knowledge.
Strangely, the open religious mind would probably agree with that but the science mind would automatically scream for evidence and dismiss out of hand anything like that because it couldn't be proven.
See, I don't believe for an instant that a human being's understanding of life needs to depend on scientists, priests, lab tests, or ancient books. I think it needs something quite different but I won't explore that here.