The Zoramite prayer provides significant information to allow us to reconstruct the nature of both their religion and the way that it intended to contrast itself to Nephite worship. First, they direct the prayer to God. Although it is possible that they worshipped a God other than Jehovah, the Book of Mormon uses God as the designation for Jehovah. Thus, the Zoramites would have thought themselves as still believing in the true God, but perhaps as a reformation of religious practices.
When they call Jehovah a spirit, modern readers might see that as a rejection of the divine corporeality of God. However, at this time, Jehovah had not yet come to earth, and therefore a description of Jehovah as a spirit was not inappropriate. However, it is also likely that the emphasis came from contact with the Lamanites, who believed in a Great Spirit (as we saw in the mission of the sons of Mosiah among the Lamanites). This may be a sign of some incorporation of Lamanite ideas into their religion, a process known as syncretism, where two different belief systems are combined along lines of similarity, but resulting in something new to both of the two original systems.
Verse 16 confirms that the Zoramites see themselves as separate from the Nephites. The language where they reject the “childishness of their fathers” would appear to replicate Lamanite ideas, further suggesting a syncretism with Lamanite ideas and religion.
The prayer also confirms their rejection of crucial Nephite beliefs in social equality and in the coming Messiah. While both ideas are rejected, the Zoramite method of worship exalts the visual display of wealth or personal power. There was a reason that Mormon used the name Antionum for them (see Alma 11:19 for the definition of an antion).