Ancient Soul
The Spiritual Universe
In one degree or another pretty much most religions are controlling in one way or another. The pressure of the sense of belonging and community is pretty much universal. The nature of the claim of salvation often to some degree exclusive to the belief system. These properties of belief systems represent the sum of pressure to belong and remain. All of the older traditional religions face this issue without exception.
True enough.
Although his statement/question clearly falls into the creepy controlling cult category:
"Would you have the guts to leave your family's religion if this means that all your family and friends in that religion are required to totally sever all contacts with you? Which considerations would you take before taking / not taking this step?"
As it's not just the religion one would leave behind, but one would be losing their entire family.
Most would find that a bit too much to give up and that's why cults use it to control their victims. (Although in my case it would be an incentive to leave any cult, they can keep my entire family. In fact it would be like planting an Internet virus into the cult that would destroy it from the inside, LOL.)