I am too honest to be religious. Religion lains waste to honest reflection and questioning.
Many people claim to be religious. How many are pretenders?
There may be good reasons why a person pretends to be religious. A religious son adores his devout mother so much that he could not bare her to learn of his atheism. However, unknown to him and family, the mother is an atheist, and has been for decades. Like the son, she became a religious pretender in order to protect her mother’s feelings, and so on.
How to break this circle of lies? Honest reflection and questioning. And that takes great courage.
Simon van Rysewyk 
That’s great that you mention these types of people. There are false prophets everywhere that preach behind the safe shield of Christianity and other religions who are sick and power hungry.
Thanks for dropping by, Erik.
This year, I’ll be thinking more about the role of human relationships in religion.
At stake in Christianity is a relationship with God. But, how is this manifested and sustained? My hunch is that nonverbal behaviors moderate religious faith, and shape it in powerful ways.
Simon
All large religions hold such high standards for their practitioners to live up to that it’s impossible not to lie and not be a hypocrite. Religion does the same as harsh parents: they breed children that lie.