It is very much inherent to WoD that most people who claim to believe in a religion do not actually believe it, but are using it as a self-justifying excuse. It's very 90s in a way. If there was a heavy dreamspeaker influence, most Japanese would have True Faith. Most Japanese do not. Ergo, there is not actually a heavy dreamspeaker influence.
oWoD assumes that most people are what the atheist movement has called "culturally religious" or in specific, culturally Christian. They observe religious holidays, play lip service to the religion itself, maybe even live culturally by internalized tenets of the religion, but they don't have true faith. Rather, they use their religion to avoid having to think about things that are uncomfortable for them rather than truly believing in whatever the tenets are, and therefore go through the motions.
There's a reason that the 'religious' Tradition in oMage is actually a heretical monotheistic syncretic cult, not an actual religion, and you hear about few if any religious magi who are independent of that and not part of another tradition. Whether it's true or not is irrelevant, that's how the WoD presents itself. Because otherwise, Big Religion would have to be part of the enemy and then you're back to having the Seers of the Throne, which the makers of oMage didn't want to do.
