That doesn't change that most of them actually believe they're helping. They've been pretty well groomed to believe that.

Probably depends on location and culture as well. Where I live there's a decent amount of moderate people. And well, they probably internalized the negative aspects. But it's not like they'll go out and molest other people with their religious stuff. So I'd say as long as they're accepting of dissent, gay people, facts... Which many of them are... They're more part of something that's deceptive from grounds up, rather than (deliberately) being deceptive themselves. And they don't follow the rules literally (same with the moderates amongst the Muslim people here). Leading me to believe they have some grasp of what's right and what's wrong beyond what's written in an old book.

Of course none of this applies to the fundamentalists, or the nasty evangelical people prevalent in some other countries. And religion always has deceit baked in, that's a fact 🤗 We'd call it science or ethics or history if it was based on something else.

It's probably a mix of both