I just never met such people irl so I have no idea what that is like. Like, having a bunch of people trying to gaslight you into believing in these stories feels like a nightmare to me, I can see why you would say you believe just to make the nightmare end.

The only very religious person I talked to about these things irl said that belief is a very personal thing and he didn't care about what others thinks or doesn't think. I think that is much healthier, and with such an approach you get almost no believers since there is no longer any pressure to believe things we wouldn't naturally believe in.