'With our minds we make the world' - not to mention all else by way of the realities we experience in the cycle of birth and death. I guess everything from sociopathic behaviour to atheism is no more no less a matter of belief, and of how strongly held these beliefs are.

Very deeply rooted fear and the consequent appearance of pure evil just means that the heart and the connection with spirit is so deeply buried that the connection with it has been lost, at least at the conscious level.

I guess entrapment by belief systems is as R says a consequence of the fact that it takes two to tango. Dogma can entrap only if it appeals in some way to the needs of an individual - usually a person prepared out of fear to over-ride their natural intelligence and intuitive knowing so that they can be a part of some sort of a group holding beliefs that at another level seems to ease that fear...