There's many a true word said in jest. Like this passage from Red Dwarf:

> Mr and Mrs Rimmer were very religious, taking the Bible scriptures at face value. The Hoppists were primarily concerned with a particular verse from the New Testament. St. Paul's first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter 13, verse 13 had been misprinted in a certain edition of the Bible. In their version, the verse read "And now these three remain: Faith, Hop and Charity. But the greatest of these is Hop".

> The Hoppists took this literally and insisted that their followers spent every seventh day hopping. They would hop to church, hop through the service and then hop home again. The Rimmers even served their Sunday lunch whilst hopping, causing them to wear protective clothing to avoid burning themselves.

This is obviously a joke but there's load of examples of people getting hung up on seemly minor details like that.

E.g. The Umbilicus Adami discussion. If the bible is literal and God made Adam then Adam didn't have a mother. So that leads to the question, did he have a belly button?

If he didn't have a belly button was he human?

It sounds ridiculously trivial but people have died over that, which is itself even sillier.

Buddhism didn't start from a blank slate either and incorporates various supernatural beings like deva (linguistically linked to Latin deus) or asura (similarly linked to Norse æsir), but they're relegated to minor roles, trapped in the cycle of reincarnation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Paths Then as it spread throughout Asia, various other local traditions got assimilated as well. Not unlike turning the Buddha into a minor Christian saint in the article.

I think it's less hypocrisy and more the desire to integrate all available information into a consistent framework. When you encounter something that doesn't fit, you can of course reject it and fight bitterly over who is right, but you can also file off the sharp edges and puzzle it together with the rest of your worldview somehow.

> I struggle with the hypocrisy of religion sometimes

That doesn’t really make sense to me. Do you mean the hypocrisy of people who follow those religions?

I tend to think that blaming outside forces for bad behaviour by people lets them off the hook a bit too easily - in particular it lets leaders off the hook far too easily - and disincentivises change because “I do X because Y makes me” rather than “I do X because I choose to”, which is the truth.

Religions might contain good teachings and bad teachings but, ultimately, people choose how they behave and so it’s the people who show hypocrisy.

>yet here is a one of those foundational stories

I don't think this is a "foundational story". I, for one, am a Christian and I have never heard of these people. I also don't recognize any "Saints"

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