Hey, Kev. If this helps any, I think I can use my own personal experience to shed a bit of light onto your question. As I have said on here many times before, the whole bible and God teachings never made much sense to me from the time I was 7 or 8 years old. Problem was, though, I was raised in a Christian family, surrounded by Christian family and friends, in a small town Christian society, smack in the middle of The Bible Belt. And it was back during a time when anybody who was NOT a professed Christian faced extreme ridicule, isolation, and sometimes potential physical harm. Suffice it to say, any non-believers around my area in those days stayed healthier by keeping their disbelief (or different religion) to themselves. Hell, simply SAYING the word “atheist” was enough to draw shocked gasps and nasty looks if spoken too loud out in public. Therefore, lest I be disowned by my family and friends, I kept my doubts to myself throughout my childhood and on into my adulthood years. Besides, any time I ever did take a chance at asking questions, I was typically met with “answers” that left me even MORE confused. And if my questions got too uncomfortable for the person being asked, I was given the patent, “Well, we just don’t know. God works in mysterious ways, and we just have to have faith.” Obviously, that “answer” never helped me any at all.
A nasty side-effect of all of this, however, was that the fear of Satan and hell got firmly implanted into my little noggin at a very early age. As such, most of my adult years were spent in an almost constant mental battle between my religious “teachings” and the things I was learning out on my own in the real world. And despite all of the contradictions and inconsistencies that were so blatantly obvious within the bible teachings I experienced, that fear of going to hell if I ever questioned God and the bible were incredibly difficult to overcome. Therefore, I can very easily relate to, and emphasize with, anybody out there who is questioning their religion but is just not quite able to completely let go of it. So, yes, while five minutes of thinking critically about religion can certainly reveal a considerable amount of bullshit, it really doesn’t matter that much if the individual is still tightly chained to the fear of hell. And it gets even more complex if the individual faces rejection from family and friends by “straying away from the flock.” Many other factors are involved, of course, but those are really to two biggies in the pile. Hope this helps you see it a little better.