I bet you that die hard theists would rather follow an evil God than acknowledge he doesn’t exist. In a sort of way that’s what they do now. They simply whitewash his sadistic nature and sugarcoat the obvious immorality of abrahamic theology. It’s elementary psychology; insecurity can lead to self deception as a way to cope with it, which in turn, can lead to irrational beliefs. That insecurity derives from fear of death, suffering, and the unknown. Our survival instinct is stubborn in the face of mortality. In contradiction to nature, we want to believe that life goes on indefinitely. Since we failed to defy Father Time, we constructed delusions of grandeur and the belief of an indomitable caretaker waiting for us in greener pastures on the other side. A script in the making for a twilight zone episode.
As far as eschatology goes, there’s the ignorant theist who is brainwashed from childhood, takes the idea of eternal life for granted and never questions it. This group of people have been in exponential decline since the Information Age, and especially at the advent of the internet. Then there’s the curious theist who wakes up every morning and lies to himself because of irrational fears. This group probably makes up most of theists in the western world today and certainly on this forum. Of course, then there’s the atheist/agnostic who accepts reality as it is without feel good addendums. Ironically, this group will one day conquer suffering and death in spite of the invisible man in the sky.