The thing is so far as I can tell Tom does accept that people are lazy. He just thinks that religions that contain lazy people shouldn't get a leg up from the game. Religions as designed are only supposed to flourish from interaction and by being so compelling they over come peoples inherent laziness. I'm not sure they achieve that as is, but making things automatic would be a step backwards in this regard.
After all if we accept people are lazy, then we accept they might not be bothered to move their units properly either, so lets just make it so marshals control everyone's movement. You could have a button that lets you "join" the army and after that everything just happens. I actually played a game like this, for all of two days. The majority of players just existed to hit that button and let the military elite actually enjoy that game, then when the army was worn down to much to fight you got to log back in, move to a recruitment zone, recruit a new unit and hit the button again.
I sort of disagree with your comparison of moving units and religion. The reason I support automation for religion is because I think religion should be the
status quo. If you want a successfull religion then obviously this needs rp and dedicated members and the all the rest of the hoo-haa. The problem is that currently we have areas that just don't accept religion at all, this annoys me a lot. Instead of having a mix of no religion, dud religions and good religions; I think we need to narrow it down to dud religions and good religions.
