Believing x and not x

It's interesting... I believe that a great amount of gain can be gained by one who believes in religion, etc., regardless of the "truth" of the belief (whatever that means.) So it seems to me that a step on the way to religion (or a goal in and of itself) might be to realize the value of Belief and believe in those beliefs while "knowing" they are not true. That is, to hold the premises x and ~x at the same time in ones mind. I think a similar idea would be something like believing in the scientific model we know to be false. We believe in gravity as a force and Newtonian physics, but these are not strictly true in a universal sense. In the same way, perhaps one can believe in Religion or some brand thereof while knowing that it is not strictly true in a universal sense. But can I adopt religions as I adopt scientific models and discard them when the religion is not appropriate for the situation?