They are just stories, but narrative stories work really well for human brains when it comes to psychological transformation.

I like to think of religions as psychological technology. One doesn’t have to believe the stories are real for them to still have power. One can engage with the fantastic map of the mind that Buddhism provides without literally believing a being achieved “enlightenment” under a tree. Likewise, in the Christian tradition, the desert fathers through Hesychasm realized much of the same stuff as Buddha, and one does not need to accept the dogma as true to make use of the technology.

Humans are myth-makers, and our brains have a neat ability to use myth to enact real change. Ricoeur dubbed something similar as the second naïveté, re-engaging with faiths after a period of rigorous critical doubt, seeing them for what they actually are, stories that provide a technology for the inner working of the human mind.