Often, it serves Satan’s purposes better if his followers actually believe in a religion. If the religion can be superficial, meaningless, and institutionalized, the follower of Satan can, at once, consider himself religious while not paying any attention to the things of the Spirit. C.S. Lewis describes how devils think on this subject:
“I am almost glad to hear that he (the tempted man) is still a churchgoer…As long as he retains externally the habits of a Christian he can still be made to think of himself as one who has adopted a few new friends and amusements but whose spiritual state is much the same…He will want his prayers to be unreal, for he will dread nothing so much as effective contact with the Enemy (God).” (C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, pp. 45-7)
This spiritual famine is founded upon the Zoramite perversions of the Lord’s plan. They are not as drastic as those of Korihor, for they do not deny the existence of God. They just ignore Him spiritually and ignore His commandments. The Zoramites had perverted the Law of Moses, ignored the commandments of God, begun to believe in dumb idols (although we are not told how this idolatry was expressed). They had also ignored the spiritual nature of the Nephite religion by ignoring the performances of the church with its emphasis on prayer and supplication (v. 10). The Zoramites had perverted prayer into rote, useless fanfare. Finally, they had perverted the doctrine of election to a greater extent than Calvin. All of these perversions served a purpose—to keep the minds of the people on anything but religion, at the same time criticizing the Nephites for following the ‘foolish traditions’ of their fathers.
“In the various apostasies, partial or total, that from time to time disgraced the Nephites there is one characteristic that seems universal to them, however much they differed on minor points. It was the denial of the coming of the Savior in the flesh and of the necessity of His atonement for the sins of the world. This was the evil one’s strong point in his efforts to mislead the ancient Nephites. Thus it was with the Zoramites.” (Reynolds and Sjodahl, Commentary on the Book of Mormon, vol. 4, p. 79)
Hugh Nibley
“So here we have a competition between two religions as well as a fusion…They boasted a superior religion, and the Zoramite priesthood claimed to be eminently rational and spiritual, accusing the Nephites of ‘childish’ beliefs and practices--Alma lays great stress upon their boasting, in the manner of all barbarians. In short, ‘they did pervert the ways of the Lord in very many instances’ (Alma 31:11), but not in all. Did they still think of themselves as Israelites? They certainly thought of the Nephites as apostates. In particular, they rejected the redemption by the Messiah as naive and unnecessary (Alma 31:16-18, 29), for they considered themselves very advanced, very superior as they strutted amidst the almost comically exaggerated splendor of their Mesoamerican dress and architecture (Alma 31:25-27).” (The Prophetic Book of Mormon, p. 544)