A Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, and an atheist walk into a coffee shop...

[Mudhammam]

Basically, what I am seeing is, "They cherry-pick the good stuff, by some dishonest method, but via some fantastical mental gymnastics I have arrived at the conclusion that they're in fact no less authentic in their faith as the sincere ones who actually attempt to follow their warped logic in a consistent manner." I'm not saying that these religious people in your lives, or most religious, are by any means bad people. They're simply either ignorant about what their texts say or willfully deceptive, with themselves or others, about what their most fundamental ideals about reality entail, per the commitments to certain principles which they have embraced in such identities as Jewish/Christian/Muslim (obviously, I'm not talking about ethnic or culture, but religious faith). If you're cool with that, then great. I'm not.