You lose if the ratio of doubters to innocents is larger than a certain amount, meaning that you have lost control over your cult (or what remains of it) and hence have failed. The increasing haziness of the screen indicates that you are nearly failing. Regarding the controls, unfortunately there is a bit of a learning curve, but there is certainly sufficient control to add skill to the random bounces (namely, SPACEBAR lets you target specific cultists and not everything it hits; and SHIFT boosts the server in a specific direction.)
Regardless, thank you for playing and for the kind words!