Hoffer also provides fine insight into what attracts many people to cults and mass movements. I find his discussion along these lines very elucidating. On a personal note, there are probably as many facets of my own religion that turn me off as that inspire me. I am turned off by a doctrinaire obsession with ideology at the expense of compassion and ethics. I am also bothered by hard-sell and aggressive proselytizing.
Religion inevitably preoccupies itself with theology and doctrine.
I hope you will think about it, too, in your own case. There was more of the good Samaritan in them than the religious ideologue. No not one. But I am blessed to see how closely some of these others, like Ghandi, St. Francis, and such, have trod in the same path of service and practical blessing to mankind. They in some sense embodied The Sermon on the Mount.