I’m confused about the current state of religion in Morrowind, or rather aspects of the religion as we see it in Skyrim. If we look at Skyrim we see a surprising amount of Dunmer there who worship Mara. Perhaps not a strange choice considering she is the goddess of love and Dunmer need love more then ever.

We also hear quite a lot of Dunmer in combat situations asking Nerevar to guide them, and if you travel on the road you will see a few Dunmer all going to the shrine of Azura. There is a Morag Tong assassin in the Thieves Guild, who still serves Mephala and according to some people Irilith in Whiterun is the same, but there are no shrines to Mephala so that’s impossible to say. The shrine to Boethiah is not as popular as the shrine to Azura, somewhat logical as Boethiah always seemed to be less important to the Dunmer back in Morrowind then Azura did, and the followers of Boethiah are a bit more on the homicidial site of things.

This seems to indicate that for a large part Vivec was right when he said the Dunmer would return to ancestor worship and the anticipations. Nerevar is considered a saint, so it’s not illogical to call for him either and considering the state of Morrowind it is not beyond believe that quite a few Dunmer would leave the Tribunal Temple and instead seek their future with the Nine/Eight.

What surprises me however, is that today I found a journal of a random bandit and it said the following:

Highwaymen killed the driver and tried to rob me. Vivec must have been with me, managed to talk them into working for me to excavate dwarven ruins they are camped in. Safer than the cities anyway.

http://imperial-library.info/content/malurils-journal

I’m kinda curious as to what this means. Does it imply that some people still worship the Tribunal or am I simply looking way to deeply in the words of one mage?

Though perhaps not to be considered a god any more, Vivec is always a poet whose words are sweet like honey if he likes to.

Maybe it's like in real world some people will say they must be with Newton or Eistein to succeed solving some difficult physics problems.

Have you ever heard anybody actually say, "Einsten must have been with me"?

It just seems awefully religious to me.

It is not religious. It is only expression, like "as If I can speak like Shakespear", or "as if I can sing like some famous singer".

At least it seems to me like this.

P.S: many people I know would praise themselves as a second Newton or say Newton had helped them in excitement after they solved some extremely difficult dynamic problems. They don't really consider Nerton any religious figure though.