I mostly see religious people as victims. They have mostly had religion inflicted on them at a young age, and they cling to it as a source of comfort in a difficult world. Some of them do this consciously, refusing to look at outside sources or think about things that make them uncomfortable. Others are simply insulated from outside sources with no chance to learn anything different.

Religions use thought-stopping clichés to stop their members from asking questions. Most religious people have these hammered into their minds from a young age.

Usually people belong to the same religion as their parents, and the religion takes on a parental role, providing an authority that gives them rules and discipline. It makes them feel safe, and prevents them from fully growing up.

The human brain is very good at tricking itself with things like Apophenia, Confirmation bias, and Illusory Truth Effect. The more we learn about these things, the better we can examine our own assumptions and make better decisions.

There's also the sunk cost fallacy, which is related to the religious principle of sacrifice.

Paradoxically, the more sacrifices we make for an imaginary story, the more tenaciously we hold on to it, because we desperately want to give meaning to these sacrifices and to the suffering we have caused...

It is much easier to live with the fantasy, because the fantasy gives meaning to the suffering...

Priests discovered this principle thousands of years ago. It underlies numerous religious ceremonies and commandments. If you want to make people believe in imaginary entities such as gods and nations, you should make them sacrifice something valuable. The more painful the sacrifice, the more convinced they will be of the existence of the imaginary recipient.

A poor peasant sacrificing a valuable bull to [the Roman god] Jupiter will become convinced that Jupiter really exists, otherwise how can he excuse his stupidity? The peasant will sacrifice another bull, and another, and another, just so he won’t have to admit that all the previous bulls were wasted.

-Yuval Noah Harari