It looks like easy money, I know I could go all L Ron Hubbard and take advantage of people in that way, but I couldn’t live with myself. My godless moral compass won’t allow me.
Literally me. My grandfather was a pastor for over 60 years. Owned two homes on twelve acres. RV. Wood shop. Income from multiple churches.
Somehow never had money. Turns out a considerable portion of his income was being passed up the bullshit chain. Savings? What’s that?
Had a conversation with a vocal Christian.
Apparently, atheists are amoral degenerates because they don’t fear god or divine wrath or hell. Waxed ineloquently.
When he stopped to catch his breath; I asked if he thought i was amoral.
He didn’t catch the warning flares. Went on to more or less repeat all of what he said, adding in that this lack of fear is why they need to punish us.
So, i asked him what Christ’s last instructions were. He stared at me blankly. Had to think about that.
Finally he said “spread the gospel…” as if maybe it was a trap. (Hey, some of his survival instincts are still working…)
So, I asked if he really thought that he was doing a great job of that right now. He looked confused. So I asked him what the gospel was
“The news of christs sacrifice and his love for everyone…”
So, I asked him what divine wrath and judgment has to do with it. So he went on a massive diatribe again about god’s judgement and how if they didn’t were all fucked.
“It’s a good thing I don’t believe in your skydaddy, then. A fairy tale can’t fuck for shit. Oh. And can we talk about how the only reason your a good person is divine wrath?”
The fun part was he filed a complaint with HR. Apparently I was the one harassing him. (And apparently the Dumbass forgot that he worked for a contract security company. We have security cameras… everywhere, including in the waiting lobby’s coffee service where he had cornered me.)(he got told to shut up. And then quite because of PeRsEcUtIoN)
Yep. I had someone “explain” to me that the only reason I had morals was that I was a good god fearing Christian. Because they couldn’t fathom the idea that someone could treat others well and not want to harm anyone without fearing god. When I said I’m an atheist they absolutely refused to believe me. Like they walked away from the conversation convinced I am Christian solely because I’d never killed anyone.
It’s amazing how there’s usually two responses- either suddenly you’re a hedonistic mass murderer or your secretly a Christian.
I could do with a little hedonism….maybe
Yep, like I literally called God “your sky daddy” and they still believed I’m Christian. Lol
Morals? Try laziness. It sounds utterly exhausting to peddle shovelfuls of bull excrement all day after day after day. To soothe and stroke the constant irrational, ignorance-fueled beliefs, anxieties and xenophobias of “your brothers and sisters in Christ”.
That doofus who made the McDonald’s documentary was given a tv show for a bit. His idea was to have people who are opposites swap lives. The religious moron who swapped with an atheist kept saying that if you didn’t get your morality from the christian bible, where do you get it. The fucking guy couldn’t imagine people having an innate sense of right and wrong unless the church spoon-fed it to them.
They really don’t understand how terrifying that is to the rest of us. That their sense of right and wrong rests entirely on what their church says
This line of thought gets even more terrifying with the rise of churches endorsing further and further right ideals - we shouldn’t feed the hungry, we should persecute those secular organizations that do. The church shouldn’t help those dirty immigrants fleeing horrific living conditions, we should send them right back there since it’s “god’s will”.
Parotioners already don’t think for themselves, it’s trivial to shift the Overton Window on what being a “good christian” means from the original teachings of Jesus to the rants from orange Jesus.
People like that are genuinely scary, you wonder what they would be up to if it wasn’t for the bible.
Not really scary, The very question reveals an unconscious moral sense. Be afraid of the Christian who is jealous that Atheists don’t have to follow rules.
My wife, the daughter of a Southern Baptist preacher, says this all the time.
Many many people that go through real seminaries come out atheists, but then need income so they become pastors. My wife went to seminary when she was questioning her religion and after learning about it was an atheist. She didn’t become a pastor tho.
That’s me!
2 years of seminary and I dropped out because I knew I had no honest future in it.
Had a 10 year career in food service management before I got my CCNA.
My sister went to seminary (super religious). Came out super atheist. It was cool to see her pull the curtain back and have the epiphany.
If the only thing keeping you moral is the threat of divine punishment, you ain’t moral.
If the only thing keeping you moral is the threat of divine punishment brother you are a piece of shit.
Jokes on you, an atheist pastor only in it to fleece his congregation is still a good servant of God :D
Just in case anyone feels the
entrepreneurialholy spirit flowing flowing through them and wants to become a legally ordained minister, https://www.themonastery.org/ can hook you up for the low low cost of your email. Ive been a minister through them for over a decade. I originally did it as a joke but you can actually use it to do all the priestly things like perform weddings and stuff.what the heck that’s pretty cool LOL
Yep, the only way to form a cult that amasses wealth and draws hot groupies is though fear and hate rhetoric. And I’m not willing to create a ministry that’s abusive and hurtful for personal gain.
Some people do start benign NRMs based on mild virtues like kindness, compassion, mercy and generosity, but those aren’t the ones that get huge and go nationwide…not while retaining their core values, at any rate.
I don’t judge anyone who follows a religion, but I like this quote. I have a grandfather that has more patience than a saint and helps other a little too much risking going into debt and he’s lost faith in religion and his church. He said “I don’t know what there is after death but if there’s a heaven then the good I do in life will be enough.” The church didn’t treat him well despite his kind generous nature and i agree with him that feels like some form of organized crime. I’m atheist and I never learned to blindly follow like my older family members did. It’s strange to see them tirelessly running around doing chores for their church but it makes them happy I guess so I don’t question it.
"The only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of real estate they own”. - Frank Zappa
There’s another quote of his but I don’t think it’s true for everyone.
Yep, the only way to form a cult that amasses wealth and draws hot groupies is though fear and hate rhetoric.
Idk about that. There have been a number of very successful cults that amassed wealth and hot groupies through excess affection and utopianism. In fact, one popular form of recruiting cult members is Love Bombing which typically involves existing members bombarding an individual with attention, affection, and romantic advances. While this is often paired with techniques for isolating the individual from the outside world, it is extremely effective on people who already feel alienated and isolated.
If you get into the weeds of how all sorts of groups from QAnon to Cutco to church youth groups operate, they inevitably involve providing these intense positive emotional experiences to new prospective members. Hell, look at the Lakewood Church in Houston or the Baha’i temple. Their entire model is based around these lukewarm vibes sessions, very reminiscent of 60s-era charisma cults.
Some people do start benign NRMs based on mild virtues like kindness, compassion, mercy and generosity, but those aren’t the ones that get huge and go nationwide
Lots of MLMs are structured around the idea that these businesses are a surrogate family and that participating in the sales campaigns is a kind of good deed that you’re doing for others. Amway, Mary Kay, and NXIVM all got big doing these ostensibly social and charitable projects to gin up membership, before exploiting folks who put their trust in them.
Billionaire philanthropy groups follow similar patterns, with individuals drawn in on the idea that the Ford Foundation or the Hoover Institute or the Carnegie Foundation or the Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation are doing legitimate good deeds. Only in hindsight do you realize you’re being chewed up and spit out - manipulated to provide lots of cheap/free labor, to take on legally/morally dubious tasks, to generate positive PR while submitting to abusive bosses - by a core of organization insiders who see you as a useful idiot.
Why are the memes on this sub just the most god awful (lol) unfunny boomer-ish memes anywhere on the internet.
Something fun to think about: English has a shit lexicon for talking about wrongdoing.
We have sin, which is wrongdoing against God (as informed by our ministries, hence why thinking sexy thoughts is sinful but war profiteering is not.)
We have crime which is wrongdoing against the state, which is why exposing embarrassments of the regime gets you more prison time than murder one.
When it comes to wrongdoing that doesn’t involve church or state, we have to use a phrase that awkwardly fits:
- crime against humanity
- sin against nature
Our laws tend to function around sin and crime (yes, even here in the States, where there’s an alleged wall of separation.) When there are victims, we first see to it the state is satisfied before we look to the well being of those affected. In many cases, the victims get no aid, no reparations, nothing.
Wrondoing can be neither crime nor sin, and still affect:
- other individuals
- the community
- a given demographic (black neighbors, gays in your community, women)
- the environment (including biodiversity / wildlife, entire ecosystems)
- the people of a region or a nation (independent of the entity of the state)
- the international community (international law and international courts exist, but they have very little power to enforce that law, hence why Putin and George W. Bush are both at large)
Most wrongdoing done by religious institutions are disregarded as sins. And most wrongdoing done by state agents are disregarded as crime. And then much wrongdoing is too complex for courts to understand or establish jurisdiction (The hedge-fund shenanigans resulting in the Subprime Mortgage Crisis of 2008 or the OxyContin lobbying / marketing campaign by Purdue pharma resulting in the current opioid epidemic).
So, in this case, newspeak is here, and when we have to sort out our own morality, it helps to be able to figure out who is affected, and who or what we’re looking to safeguard when we’re making a proscription.
