system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Most religious people aren't actually religious

Hello,

Medium-time lurker, first time poster, I look forward to hearing everyone's opinions on this topic.

I personally am profoundly atheist just so my bias is clear.

This argument is beyond the scope of "is religion true or not" (including: is there a God, which religion is correct etc.). I am most familiar with the Bible and Christianity so my argument pertains mostly to that but I believe the general premise can be extended to most other mainstream religions.


EDIT
The dictionary definition of 'Religious' is: 'relating to or believing in a religion'. I believe the definition I provided below gives context to what it is to believe in a religion
END EDIT

Defining 'Religious': acting in accordance to word of God, including all laws, commandments, morals, ethics and traditions. 


Most (if not all) religions come with a set of (usually hard and fast) laws, morals and ethics; the 10 commandments being a good example of this. There are also other morals presented in isolation, the sin of homosexuality in the Bible being a foremost example. 


However, most reasonable religious people do not care whether someone is gay or not, they don't care if you wear clothes made from more than one cloth, if you plant different crops side by side, work on the sabbath, they condone slavery and inequality between men and women. They have (in my mind correctly) super imposed their own set of morals and values over those stayed in their religious texts - the word of God - in ways they find to be good. How can someone believe in an omnipotent, omniscient God that has given his gospel and claim they follow his law and then... not. The only reason I can think of is a hypocrisy of claiming to be religious when actually not, perhaps they are spiritual instead.
gpt
There are two problems here. 

First, you don't really seem to understand Christianity. Christians are not hypocrites for planting different crops side by side or working on the Sabbath, because according to Christianity, we were explicitly told we no longer have to do those things. Christians are not bound by the laws in the Old Testament, so saying they are hypocrites for not following those laws is like saying Americans are hypocrites for not following the laws of Norway. It makes no sense.

Now, the second problem: of course there are *many* religious people who absolutely *are* hypocrites. But how does that make them not religious? One can be religious and a hypocrite at the same time. If you say you love your girlfriend, and then you do something selfish that hurts her, does that mean you don't *really* love her? No, it just means you are a flawed human being. There are some people who claim to be religious and are clearly just using it as an excuse to swindle people or cover up their own bad behavior or manipulate others, but that is a separate conversation from the every-day kinds of hypocrisy you are talking about. Especially since there are many different interpretations of religious texts--from very strict to very lax--I fail to see how not following one person's interpretation makes people somehow not "actually" religious.