THAT'S the most interesting part! I love examining this, yeah it's using cultural stories and kind of grey psychology to cause specific behaviors.

Ironically this is also where I think faith can be somewhat redeemed. If you start looking past the dogma to the specific intentions, yes a lot if it is shitty and it's all manipulative but also on some level it's trying to get people to act in pro-social ways. Specifically ones who normally could not be fucked to act pro-socially without some kind of supernatural threat aimed at them.

I got into Hebrew discourse lately because they're kind of cognizant of that and so their religion is a constant conversation with their history. They're constantly reinterpreting what it means to be Jewish in this moment of time and have a perspective that has to stand on the idea that there's a highly likely chance that it's all made up.