> I am more curious as to how someone becomes convinced of one author over
another. The
> comparison to
> religious faith is pretty much on the mark but I don't fully understand
that either.
One possible explanation is action-reaction. There was a lot of nation-building myth making in the 19th century Europe and that involved manufacturing national cultural pieties and heroes - which was followed by a reaction to demystify these attempts. If that is the case, there was more at stake than selling Shakespeare stories - it was essentially a right-left debate fought in the field of literary criticism. Rightists would go for national-hero worship, lefties would try to throw a monkey wrench at that cult.
I do not think, however, that this matters today. I think that the issue is controversial today precisely because it questions the established modern notion of authorship, which is bourgeois in its roots.
Wojtek