This way of thinking is so foreign to me. I see it as a handy way to avoid taking responsibility for your life, and what happens in it.

Difficult to say why people subscribe to this ...

When you thank god for your accomplishments, you don't give yourself credit. When you blame the devil for failures, you don't take responsibility.
Granted, god is also responsible for not giving us what we want, but that is chalked up to working in mysterious way.
I've seen this in most Alcoholic Anonymous meetings, where they have to submit to a higher power. Those with addictions trade off one thing for the other, granted, I'd rather seem a former addict attend church peacefully with their life turned around than destroying themselves with substance abuse.

They can't help themselves. Indoctrination is stronger than drug addiction, because religious addiction is encouraged instead of intervened. As we were taught....and they truly want to believe...that they are "nothing without God!"

The obvious paradox of God's 'interventions' was the source of my first doubts, in my early teens. I will never forget the day in church when I heard the elder praying for a dying member of the congregation. The elder first prayed for healing, but then gave God 'an out' by praying that 'if it be thy will, o Lord, to call your faithful servant ...' blah blah blah. Right then and there I perceived an unfair advantage for God. It didn't matter whether or not the man lived or died, either way, God wins!

So there's this flood. The water's up to my knees. Guy rows up in a boat and says "hop in!". I say "nah, God will save me." The water is up to my chin. Dude putts up in a motorboat. "Get in!" "Nope, I'm good. God will save me." Then I'm sitting on the roof surrounded by water. A yacht pulls up and I refuse him 'cuz I'm waiting for God. So I'm at the Pearly Gates. St. Pete asks me about my arrival. So I said God failed me and I drowned. "What are you talking about? He sent three fucken boats."

Now even with the woo, this is a parable on awareness. Why they don't teach self-awareness is beyond me.

Oh, my. shakes head I hate people like that "oh, I don't have to worry about paying rent, I'm covered in the blood of Jesus." I used to have a neighbor who wouldn't go to the doctor for her numerous health problems because God was gonna take care of her. Or, "look, I just found a $20. God is really watching over me." So, you just implied that the person who lost the $20, which may have been all the money they had left, was deserted by Jesus because "you needed that money more." slaps the stupid out of you

Religious training, fear of a jealous god taking revenge on them if they "bragged." Also, this is true, in a way, since we are our own gods, and contribute to creating our own realities.

“I regard consciousness as fundamental and matter as derivative from consciousness." – Max Planck, theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory, 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics