I don't think theists are any different to any other demographic, just because they believe in a god. There are good eggs, and bad eggs, and many baskets

I do have one or two friends who really seem to follow the teachings of their religion. They also do not proselytize, which makes me appreciate them even more. That said, I do not think most that I have met do so. In fact, when one has to make it a point to inform you that they are Christian, I become even more suspicious (company signs with Jesus fish in particular draw my ire, as well as ACTS stickers on suburbans).

When I first began outing myself, I had a cousin ask me how I could not believe in god and Jesus, and where would I get my moral compass from. I replied that one did not have to believe Jesus was the son of god or even that he existed at all to think that he was a pretty cool guy whose teachings had some excellent ideas. She didn't know how to respond to that.

I strongly believe Agnostic is the perfect description of me; and that everyone is agnostic, they just refuse to admit it. Agnostic means “to not know”. It’s NOT POSSIBLE TO KNOW what happens when you die. People who claim to know are not being honest. They have faith, but they don’t know. It especially irritates me when people try to use the Bible as proof for their faith in their religion. If I’m asking why you believe what you read in the Bible, your answer can’t be, “Because it says so in the Bible.”

I would guess that there is a bit of doubt in the claims of most theists, but they don't acknowledge this.

devout theists may try harder to uphold their creed

As Matt Dilihunty often says "I am not a mind reader so I have to take you for your word". So I do too until otherwise demonstrated by the theist.

Some are, but many are not.

No. I think it's like believing in Santa Claus. You know better but pretend.

I can say with certainty (and I never do that ) that a small SMALL group of god botherers truly believe AND live what they say.

but not many.

I trust an Atheist far more than a religious person, any day! When someone says to me "you can trust me I believe in god" and such, I run away.

i'm increasingly of the opinion that if someone shoehorns their belief in God into a conversation, they're actually trying to gain trust that they don't necessarily deserve. So straight away, I'm on the defensive. This is someone who's trying to make me believe that they're trustworthy. This in turn means that they likely have an agenda, and probably aren't.

It's common with the Nigerian 419 scammers on Facebook. Usually claiming to be US military or UN peacekeeping forces stationed abroad. Commonly not knowing the difference between a first name and a surname (my all time favourite was "Smith Bob" ) God almost always comes up early in the conversation, because a decent, God-fearing person wouldn't try to rip you off... would they?

I one asked one "Is it a decent, Christian thing to steal someone else's photos, set up fake profiles on Facebook, and try to scam people with them?" Like most of them (I think they typically have limited English skills) they just carried on trying to scam me anyway.

I think anyone can only be as honest with others as they are with themselves.
There are a great many who do not attend church, pray regularly, tithe etc. But do believe that they should do these things and that others should as well. They do not in fact believe what they say about the truth or inerrancy of the bible. They would not accept the policies prescribed in the Bible and would reject them as cruel and pointless. When confronted with this they have to find an escape from the contradiction by insistence that it is not a contradiction and only seems so by a lack of understanding on the part of whoever points this out, Including themselves. They believe in belief as a good in itself. They do not see this.
I cannot share your desire to live in an iron age vision of a Christian eutopia.

I think that for the most part, a theist should exactly be taken at their word even though closeted theists is a thing, I think by and large, unless they're desperately locked into a worldview that they are not comfortable stepping out of for social, moral or God-fearing reasons among many, I believe people profess and opine their firmly held beliefs proudly as a rule of thumb, even to the extent that if faith wavers there will usually be an amount of shame exhibited in the "failure". Ah... look at me with quotations around failure of faith, full disclosure I am Pantheist, don't worry all you reason-bound atheists I find the Bible a fetid mess and I wholly defer to demonstrable and well-established sciences, I even fancy a few pet hypotheses of my own. As far as Christians reflecting the teachings of the Bible, really, I find that there is a salient dichotomy between the personal, caring God synonymous with love modern Christians pray to and the evil, malicious punily-omnipotent wrath-filled tyrant of the old testament that Christians go to great lengths to reconcile with their best effort for objective notions of morality using their modern sensibilities. Seriously though, they have to go as far as to admit that hell does not exist, and in the Bible it simply means apart from God and not this sadistic premeditated torture of stupid little beings that were apparently perfectly predicted to be vile little creatures that didnt get the puzzle right and throw their filth on the nonsensical story (not that it didnt happen) of human sacrifice. Seriously though, if the Christian God is the truth of reality, He's going to have some explaining to do if this whole hellfire is a thing, in my opinion. As the desire for another being's suffering is corruption, without exception. There will be no fancy footwork of omniscience to dance around the infinitely reflecting truth of that statement.

I think only a handful of people who claim to be Christians actually are.

The ones that I know are sincere. I can't say the same of the whole.

I look back at myself and I think I was honest and sincere, and many of my friends seemed to be also. It is really hard to be aware of our own inconsistencies. Our brains aren't wired for rational truth as much as for survival, and survival frequently depends on fitting in with our group.

To put a slight twist on this, I think many religions have sincere people in them. But, the people I'm thinking of would adhere to ANY faith so long as it gave them opportunity to express their gifts. They care less about dogma, and more about loving their neighbour. Religion, church, etc. is a means to an end, not the end itself. THOSE are the sincere ones...

As i child i was weirded out when i noticed that everyone in church seemed to be unhappy but always wore a smile and always said they were happy. I never believed them and i couldn't figure out why until i left the church. You're right, they are ALL insincere, it's just that that is the first thing they beat out of you. They teach you to convert others, go to church and stand up for religious principles outside the community in order to continually convince yourself of your belief, its almost literally a practice of self-traumatization to deny your insincerity as if its your 'original sin'

I think that they are sincere but misguided. They do not do the necessary work and study to analyze their faith and what it means in the world today. Even though they are sincere their faith and very earnest in what they want to believe, what they do believe are often not the teachings of their religious book(s) and their ability to deny basic facts is at most times pretty shocking. Religion seems to have the ability for sincere and honest folks to leave their brain at the door and not giving a second thought to what they are taught by those who are manipulating them.

There is no doubt in my mind that most theists are sincere in what they profess to believe. And, to the degree that they even think about it they believe they are living in concert with their beliefs. It is much easier to perpetuate a belief system that promises a path to immortality than it is to face ones finite place in the universe.

"Christ's teachings"- you really don't get it do you? Christianity is just a Jewish cult that got out of control; a matter of one-upmanship, where the group found the "prophet", even though he had to be invented. J.C. is a piece of fiction.

So now "you are an atheist"; you are ready to deny something that never existed in the first place. Interesting!

Most christians do not practice what they preach. After all if you can go to confession or during a prayer state you are sorry and assume that this makes everything ok until the next time you SIN , this is an easy way to go through life. I do not believe we as people have evolved enough to live in a society with violence. Maybe some day if we do not destroy ourselves before we attain this state.

Well, most religious people I've met are sincere in their faith, but I must say I live in a place where religion has almost 0 power over anything. Anywhere religion has power over people, power-hungry people will use it to their advantage, but where it has no power, you can actually see what real faith is about.

Yes I believe a lot of Theists are sincere with a good sprinkling of "main-chancers" and hangers-on who essentially appear to be pretty weak-minded people and/or people who love to obey others!

I've dealt with a lot of Christians and quite a few Pagans over the years. Most of those I know struggle to hold onto their beliefs against rational, demonstrable reality; some have gone psychotic and live in a lala land; a smaller group enjoy having the scheme by which to gain personal and group benefits.

As for taking the teachings seriously, the first two groups do, and sometimes the third does; the sticky part is finding out which parts they take to live by. There are several conflicting threads in any religion, particularly the monotheistic and/or universalizing ones, so that they are able to adapt to almost anyone -- Jimmy Carter and Paul Ryan both claim to be Christians, for instance -- but I think those who are otherwise sincere are also sincere in the main flavor of religion they espouse.

Mind you, those flavors don't have to cohere or maintain a rational core to be viable. That's our job.