This is one of Satan’s most effective arguments. As missionaries knock on doors, they are frequently told, “we have a religion, we have no need of your Book of Mormon.” In so saying, the individual is often using this as an excuse to dismiss the new message. To them, having a religion is like having a car, a family, or a dog—it doesn’t matter what kind it is as long as you have one. For years, the missionaries in Western Europe have struggled because the people there have felt like the Amalekites, saying, in effect, “we have a religion, we have no need of yours.”
Satan would much rather have people believe in a religion which teaches that all are saved than that they have no religion at all. Those without religion often turn to God at some point, looking for answers to the meaning of life. A perfunctory, superficial religion, on the other hand, fosters spiritual complacency and keeps the individual from searching for more. Such is the religion of the Amalekites.
Neal A. Maxwell
"Therefore, as Aaron entered into one of their synagogues to preach unto the people, and as he was speaking unto them, behold there arose an Amalekite and began to contend with him, saying: What is that thou hast testified? Hast thou seen an angel? Why do not angels appear unto us? Behold are not this people as good as thy people? (Alma 21:5.)
We also see rationalzation in the raw…Likewise open to plain view are the consequences of lapsed faith:
"’And thus we can plainly discern, that after a people have been once enlightened by the Spirit of God, and have had great knowledge of things pertaining to righteousness, and then have fallen away into sin and transgression, they become more hardened, and thus their state becomes worse than though they had never known these things.’ (Alma 24:30.)
"We see variations in disbelievers, such as the paradox of some who believe vaguely but whose beliefs are not connected with their daily behavior. Some assume that the god they worship is a very permissive as well as passive god.
"Empty homage to a passive deity inevitably results in a permissive laity, as Alma explains: ’Now this was the tradition of Lamoni, which he had received from his father, that there was a Great Spirit. Notwithstanding they believed in a Great Spirit, they supposed that whatsoever they did was right.’ (Alma 18:5.)
"We can better understand, therefore, why the adversary is anxious that people not be given those particularized saving truths that pertain to the past, present, and future. In the Book of Mormon we see several incidents of people who strayed and faltered because of their proud provincialism, and who then stoutly maintained that they could not know that which is to come. One example is the Zoramites, who, Alma said, ’did offer up, every man, the self-same prayer unto God, thanking their God that they were chosen of him, and that he did not lead them away after the tradition of their brethren, and that their hearts were not stolen away to believe in things to come, which they knew nothing about.’ (Alma 31:22.)
“How fascinating to see adherence to a false religion in which superficial ritual, proud contentment, and a haughty rejection of prophecy were so adroitly combined! Sanctioned agnosticism can be very insistent on its own orthodoxy.” (Plain and Precious Things, pp. 66-67)