What does it mean when a person says they are religious but not practising?

They believe in a religion, but don’t attend service, or pray, or read the religious book, etc.

Literally: They’re lost

Literally: They’re lost

Religion is a cultural phenomena. My ex- was raised Catholic. She still believes in God but disagree with a lot of church teachings but still considers herself Catholic because she has a pool of shared experiences with other Catholics like mass, going to Catholic school etc, She has a kinship with other Catholics so even though she has problems with the church she considered herself part of the community and wouldn’t think of changing religions. She even said that I’m still a Protestant even though I no longer believe in God. She said that I still have the Protestant work ethic and the stoicism imparted by the Calvinist based Presbyterianism I was raised with. I don’t really see it that way but I understand her point. Someone can still identify with and have ties to a religion without “practicing” it.

You know those people who say, oh, Im Christian, but I dont go to church, yeah those are the religious, but non-practising people. They basically call themselves whatever religion because that’s what their ancestors were, but they dont actually follow the religion. Niky…be useful once in awhile, c’mon.

Sometimes it can mean that they believe something but they don’t follow the “rules” or go to whatever type of church, temple, whatever their religion uses.

I’ve known a lot of mormons and catholics who say this because they grew up believing but they don’t want to live the life style that those religions call for.

What Niky said, they’re lost.