Summary
Evangelical Christians have fallen prey to the temptations offered by Donald Trump, similar to those faced by Jesus in the desert. Trump has offered evangelicals wealth, protection, and power, leading them away from the teachings of Jesus and closer to the path set forth by the devil. The evangelical church has submitted to Trump, moving further from the values of serving the poor, healing the sick, and loving neighbors.
It isn’t even believing in sky daddy, rather it’s believing that one of his sky children has been specially appointed to interpret sky daddy and that you should give that representative all your money, time, and choices.
If our only problem was that people pray to sky daddy and look inward for answers, we wouldn’t have a problem. It’s the religious authority figures who seem to do most of the radicalizing.
No, it’s just as basic as the OP let on… Going to church every Sunday indoctrinates the, “appeal to authority” logical fallacy. The very premise that the religion itself is the source of truth in the world is the trap that leads people down the road of falling for charlatans and other scam artists.
All it takes is for their priest or pastor to endorse (directly or indirectly) any political view, candidate, or person/product and “the flock” will adhere. To not adhere is to deny the authority and thus, the religion itself. That often also means expulsion from their community and very real other social and sometimes worse consequences.
The only “escape” is to simply not participate which actually resolves into two scenarios:
At an even more basic level, going to church and claiming publicly that you adhere to a religion like evangelical Christianity opens you up to be scammed. Since there’s no official tests or regulations regarding what counts as “Christian” literally any scammer/scummy company can claim to be Christian and thus, “on the team”.
Christ’s teachings are pretty clear that everyone is on the same team and not to favor one group over another based on ethnicity (and by extension, religion) as given by the parable of washing the prostitute’s feet. However, that’s not really taught much in evangelical churches these days! In fact, if your pastor isn’t bringing that up right now–as Trump promises to intern immigrants, forcing them away from their families/communities–with regularity they’re probably in that second camp I talked about: Faking piety for profit.
But not every religion requires belief in a patriarchal deity or any loyalty or sacrifice. New age religions in particular tend to fit that bill, plus other varieties of gnostic, pagan, and attainment religions.
Treating all religions like Abrahamic ones is part of how they win. People should know the alternatives if they feel a lack of spirituality in their life.
Magical thinking of all types is harmful