Ugh, so true. The beginning of the end of my association with the church was brought about by someone I knew well and trusted who just asked me if my church tended to play more upbeat songs right before they took up the offering. I defended my church saying "No, of course not", but then I watched and listened for the next few weeks. Damned if it wasn't true.
Tradition, familiarity, ritual- these are things that human beings are wired to be attracted to. It's a safety net and makes us feel comforted. It's not the scary, confrontational place where we have to make decisions and will be judged based on those decisions, it's the place where everything happens one certain way, so as long as you do things that way, you'll be judged right. The problem is that we're so vunerable in our "relaxed state" that we aren't using our otherwise decent powers of perception THERE. I wasn't either, so I can see how dangerous this stuff really is when it is used by politicians for selfish goals. Decent, honest people just aren't looking for bad guys at church, so they more readily accept anything being said there as truth and good.
Religion causes some people to want to do good things and treat each other well, and I'm all in favor of that. If they're doing so because they believe that is the will of God, I have no problem with that either. What I have a HUGE problem with is when people use their religion as a way to elevate the importance of their OPINIONS over others. That's bullshit and it needs to stop, or human beings will never make it out of the dark ages.