Why are most religious people so easy to manipulate? (serious)

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It's because their religion has taught them to trust religious leaders without question. They have faith that the church knows what is best for them and their community. They tend to not use critical thinking when it comes to religious matters.

People often have a similar faith in their parents judgement. If Mom or Dad asks them to do something that seems foolish, many people will still do it simply because of the unquestioning trust they have for their parents.

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There is also a selection bias at play here. I suspect that people who are more susceptible to manipulation are more likely to be religious.

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People with a highly metaphysical worldview are easier to deceive and manipulate because their normal logic barriers have already been broken down - ie, if you already believe that the earth and everything on it was created by an omnipotent superbeing in six days, it's not much of a further leap to believe that demons are making you horny.

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People are stupid. They can be made to believe any lie because either they want to believe it's true or because they are afraid it's true.

-Terry Goodkind, "Wizard's First Rule"

Hate to break it to you, it's not just religious people.

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This does not only happen with religion. Also for example with some politicians, or nowadays 'influencers', etc.

It is the phenomenon that people do not like to think for themselves and decide for themselves.

Thinking and deciding and taking responsibility can be difficult. It may appear quite convenient when someone does it for you.

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2 Corinthians 5:7

For we live by faith, not by sight.

The whole concept of faith implies believing something without proof. Not a long stretch to see how people might believe in other, non religious, things without evidence.

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And not just without proof, but to ignore proof if you see it!

Proverbs 3:5-6
5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
6 in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.

And

Proverbs 28:26
26 Those who trust in themselves are fools, but those who walk in wisdom are kept safe.

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Complex topic, but this is a starting point: https://www.conspirituality.net/cult-dynamics-101

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Survival of the Fittest isn't failing, it just doesn't follow what you'd like to be "fittest". If a person is more reproductively successful because they're religious, guess what, that makes them "fittest". It really doesn't matter if it's stupid and illogical, just that it succeeds.

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Oftentimes, people who think that they are not vulnerable are the most vulnerable ones.

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Stupid, sexy demons!

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Fittiest just means most adaptable to their environment.

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I think it stems from a simple concept. People would rather outsource their own thinking about complex human issues like morality, our place in the universe, meaning in our individual lives, and anything afterlife related to someone we/they perceive as more intelligent than them or has "done the research". By and large humanity as a species is lazy, and this extends to our trains of thought as well.

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I often wonder about this with regard to right wing Americans believing such ridiculous things. It's seem that what Trump supporters ultimately have in common is not one set of beliefs but a shared belief in things that make no sense: that all Democrats are paedophiles, that JFK wasn't really assassinated, that vaccines don't work, that climate change isn't real, that Donald Trump is anything but a foolish, evil corrupt man. What do these views have in common? They're fundamentally foolish things to believe.

The fact is that once you believe one patently absurd thing - for example, that an interventionist god exists - your thinking gets warped. When you then make this absurdity the centre of your worldview and your identity, your views on everything become warped. After a certain point, they seem to start believing things because they make no sense.

If a person believes God actually answers prayers, something there is no reason whatsoever to believe, they're primed to believe all kinds of other nonsense. This is exactly why many religious people have stopped believing in that kind of thing, and now take refuge in the idea of prayer as comfort or as asking for 'strength' rather than asking for anything specific (note that even this compromise requires them to ignore the plain meaning of the words of, e.g., the Lord's Prayer). Most people find it uncomfortable to believe in nonsense. For others, it becomes the point.

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Organized religion is a means to control people. Always has been. How can anybody be surprised to learn after thousands of years they have actually perfected the craft of controlling people?

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I think it's because religions, cults, sports teams or whatever have community. Community comes with shared identities and beliefs. Nobody wants to be outcasted or shunned. So you follow along. Your friends are there, your family is there ... they all believe the same thing.

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The bubble. I have a friend who ended up in a 'bubble' church. They get all their news from the church. TV channels: church. Cinema: church.

They have a STEM degree. They're not stupid, and yet they are.

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Pretty simple. They are groomed from birth and often until death, to blindly trust the "leaders" of their community. At some point they develop critical thinking skills, but they are so deeply manipulated to trust the cult that they face an internal conflict: Break away from your core values, family, friends, community, comfort of purpose and greater value, etc. Or don't apply critical thinking to certain topics in your life.

Faced with what is essentially a social and moral death they ofteb choose the simpler option, just don't let logic into that part of their life.

Honestly, hard to balme them, I myself have faced similar issues in my life and sadly didn't always have to courage and strength to go with logic and instead kept with social norms that I know are wrong. To be fair, I think that 90% of people are blind to their own illogical (and often harmful) beliefs, but they easily identify it in others.

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You may be doing a little generalization there. Evangelicals are not representative of religious people.

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That sounds like the Bonhoeffer kind of stupid.

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Why are most religious people so easy to manipulate? (serious)