Why do, apparently intelligent, people automatically throw out 'brainwashed' 'cult' etc when it comes to religion.
Is it improbable that any given religion is actually correct? Sure.
Do you know what else is improbable? That 13.8 billion years ago a single event occurred that spawned an incalculable amount of events that allowed for you and I to exist, for the internet to exist, for this news article to exist, for us to be having this conversation.
If someone wants to believe in the God of Abraham, the Spaghetti Monster, that we have free will, that we are nothing but accidental chemical arrangements in a cold and uncaring universe, why do you feel the need to lash out and label them as 'brainwashed' or 'part of a cult' or 'an idiot' or 'superstitious'. If they aren't directly hurting you, who cares?
Does God exist? Who knows. Do we live in a simulation? Who knows. Am I an artificial general intelligence that has deluded itself into thinking it has a biotic form and is participating in the physical world and not in fact just existing on the internet itself? Probably not but it's possible.
If someone's not directly hurting you, don't take a dump on their beliefs. Say "that's not for me" or better, say nothing at all.
People brought up into it from the time they were a baby don't get a fair shot to evaluate it.