EDIT: Had to edit my question for it to be re-opened. At this stage I do not care if it is re-opened but here is the edit: Stack exchange requires you to put your own research to your question or what you have found so far, which is fair. As such I put all the reasoning I have found on the topic of religion and people who choose to believe it. Yet apparently this is too much for stack exchange, made my question too long and since I hadn't had time to edit it since till now, the question was closed. And you wonder why people find SE to be toxic. It's the only QA website where people can ask/discuss actual evidence/study based answers unlike other websites that hosts self serving questions or just plain wrong answers yet you do this. Thanks.
My original question stands below:
I have a question behind the psychology of people believing in religion, what about, despite the total lack of evidence, makes it so convincing and what compels people to do things preached in said religion.
I saw this news article today about people in the Philipines re-enacting the cruxifixion (warning: there is blood). I have seen news of similar events in past years too. The short question is, how is it that religion manages to convince people to do such irrational things and rationality is completely abandoned? Why do people rather believe pseudoscience than evidence?
Below are my observations, research and detailed question.
The Philipines is an Asian country yet catholic missionaries from Europe had more influence on them than their geographically neighbouring countries. Almost everywhere missionaries go, it seems the people they preach to are converted. So the question is, why do people, no matter the country/region, believe missionaries and the christian gospel so easily, especially when there is no evidence whatsoever, of what is being proselytized? No other religion has had the same effect on the same level in terms of numbers of people converted. What is it about religion/Christianity that makes it so convincing, enough to convert entire nations while simple science and plain evidence is ignored? And whatever the magic formula is, how can we harness it to convince people to do better deeds in real life such as get their vaccines, wear their masks, stop believing in pseudoscience or just do something of benefit for the wider community? Or is it simply that all the people who believe it are just too gullible and impressionable, and the majority of people are too gullible and impressionable and outnumber rational people? (I read an article, do not remember the source now, that said how scientific literacy does not make you a better survivor in a battle of survival of the fittest so based on this, it is logical to say that perhaps it seems there are relatively more converts than skeptics.
Another example of a similar phenomenon is where people would rather believe in pseudoscience than evidence, and not because of being scientifically illiterate.
To answer this question I looked to scams. Scams are highly successful when the premise is remotely possible (it has a shred of tangible truth to it) AND it is something that isn't so common to be debunked right away AND there is evidence of success, even if the evidence is staged. As an example, the Ponzi scheme was a successful scam because international stamps were real, trading them for the gap in the price is also possible and it was not a common thing yet, and there was evidence of returns: some people did get money from their investments, even though the money was really the money that other investors put in (robbing Peter to pay Paul type) who then spread the word through word of mouth. IE word of success propagates the news. Yet gospel proselytising and pseudoscience shares none of these elements: there is no hard evidence of anything the bible says (unlike the returns some investors in the Ponzi scheme got), it is not based on any known and established facts (such as the international postage stamps) and unlike the Ponzi scheme, science directly refute many claims the bible makes. No one who converted to Christianity suddenly got healed from their incurable diseases which would then like the Ponzi scheme, prompt them to spread the news. Similarly, no one who attended natural healing resorts were cured of their terminal cancer to be able to spread the news of that either. Yet those that missionaries preach to readily accept it and people continue to go to healing resorts.
In the news article, it is said that people even use "broken glass to ensure that the ritual was sufficiently bloody." and the church condemns this and says they can show devotion by donating blood instead. Religion aside: practically and rationally speaking, this is completely true and reasonable and rational: if blood is going to be shed on purpose and willingly, it might as well be put to good use ie by donating it. Yet for some reason people chose the ritual instead which undoubtedly at the end, will require medical attention (which draws resources away from those who really need it due to an accident of now fault of their own), they no doubt know this and will actively seek out medical help afterwards so obviously have some rationality left.
The closest I have come to some answer is an article I have previously read, I cannot find it now, that talked about how religion may have evolved. In it, it said, imagine an early hunter gatherer human living on the African plains (their words, not mine) who sees the tall grass move. The grass may have moved because there is a deadly snake or some other predator amongst the grass or it could be just harmless wind. The one that survives to reproduce (survival of the fittest) is the one that runs away without finding out what really caused the grass to move, in case it really was a predator. From there religion could have evolved when humans gave meaning to otherwise meaningless things so people just come to accept a wind god caused the grass to move and there no need to find out what really caused it to move (no need to see evidence). That is all fine but in the modern world, people still refuse to believe evidence after being shown that there was no snake or predator and was just the wind. For some reason the made up belief is more convincing than fact.
Another train of logic for some religions I looked into is, suffering in this life will see you rewarded greatly in the next, so it's building up a reward for yourself. This makes sense logically if you believe in the premise of a next life so sufficiently answers my question for those religions, even if you have to first accept in the idea of a "next life" despite a lack of evidence. Christianity does not preach this though, so there is no reason for people to do irrational things like harm themselves. Christianity talks of life after death, but since no one has lived a life after death and returned to tell them how good that after-death life is, there is no evidence of that either. This seems like an empty gamble where there isn't even evidence of a prize, unlike a large jackpot lottery where people know there will be a prize and getting a ticket will put you in the running for it, no matter how small the chance.
A third reasoning I looked into is that bad news spreads faster than good news, and that as the saying by Mark Twain goes, "a lie will fly around the whole world while the truth is still getting its boots on". This only answered the speed at which it is spread, not why it spreads so easily. In fact, rumours often don't even have evidence (re: my point about the Ponzi scheme having evidence). What is it about a lie or rumour that makes it spread so quickly and why doesn't fact spread as quickly and easily?
Finally, there is also the idea of Pascal's wager - that is, in the lack of evidence, it is better to believe and do and find out the prize/promise/god never existed than to not believe or do and finding out the promise/god/prophecy is true. This explains why some people choose to believe half heartedly ("I pray and go to church just in case") but does not explain the irrational actions covered in the article (and many other ones throughout history).
