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How long have you been able to tell someone does not have a lot of disposable income just by their looks? Do you base your assumption on their clothing? Physical attributes? Shoes?
If you have never been to an actual service how is it you can have an opinion on something you have yet to experience yourself? For many faith is faith no matter what avenue is used to get there and many times that man you see wearing overalls and worn boots who is with the woman in a plain dress and wearing flats in that 25 year old truck are millionaires many times over.
My family were some pretty messed up people...but at least they weren't religious.
Nothing against religion, but I was never raised in any crazy "BOOM SHAKALAKA JESUS!" Church that involved booty shaking for the lord and backflips for salvation and the congregation speaking Klingon to have an encounter with the Holy ghost.
What is it? Simple: peer pressure. A bunch of people they have esteem for start that gibberish and they try to be just as holy as they are by joining in. It is all a scam, I assure you. Those kind of churches are basically a case of the Emperor's new clothes.
Want to experience God? Someone once gave us some advice: "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words."
Matthew 6:6-7
Go in a quiet place and sit in front of a candle to feel good. Or better yet, go out and do something for someone. Feed the homeless, help someone in need, be a good friend to the friendless. Do that, and in the reflection of another human's eyes, you will see God....or you could just keep trying to find it here:
The whole rationale for the rise of pentecostalism and its gentler cousin, the charismatic movement, was a desire for a direct experience of god. There's a long tradition of conjuring unusual experiences and attributing them to god (snake charmers, for example, or the Oracle of Delphi). There are a lot of people who want tangible experiences to "validate" their beliefs via what seems to them like experiences that are both attention-grabbing and seemingly coming from outside themselves. Put those two things together and you have things like you're describing.
Darbyism in the 1830s gave rise to what become modern Christian fundamentalism and it was based on the assertion that the mainline denominations lacked a "vital", "living" "relationship" with god because of empty formalism. Fundamentalism did away with high church ritual, fancy buildings, and the like. But it split somewhere around the turn of the 20th century into branches that valued quasi-intellectual, non-emotional belief grounded in a supposedly objective reading of scripture, with an experience-seeking style. Or put another way, a branch that defined itself more by what it wasn't (ritualist, traditionalist) and a branch that that defined itself by what it was (experiential, emotional). One group says signs and wonders aren't for today and stopped in the distant past when the "canon of scripture was closed", leaving us with all we need for faith and practice: the Bible. The other group says god still "moves" today among his people, although you have to know where and how to look ;-)
Part of pentecostalism is an abreaction to the notion non-pentecostals have that god no longer actively provides new revelation to us. This is hard for some people to sit with. They still usually revere scripture and don't want to contradict it, but feel that god will actively provide, through the prophetic gifts, interpretation and application of scripture relevant to today. For a pentecostal it is not just about active guidance from god for personal decisions -- even non-pentecostals expect god to "impress" this or that on them to nudge them in a certain direction when they seek guidance, or to give them "peace" about one choice vs another. It is also about keeping scripture relevant and "alive" rather than static.
I rather think that pentecostal / charismatic ideology provides a richer repertoire of ways to "experience" and interpret their faith, at the expense of some embarrassing conflicts between people claiming a "word from the lord" that conflicts with other "words". You also have to be willing and able to act the fool, which I was never remotely able to do.
This post nailed it. What they are seeking after is validation; proof that they were right, are in the right, and will be alright. Like you and Luminous said, it has to come from outside yourself, or at least your rational, normal mind. When it comes from within the mind, you delve into the logical and theological world from where pentecostalism came from. With something like tongues, it's easy to believe it's not you doing the act.
The ideal Pentecostal has (or believes to have) access to hidden knowledge, knowledge of the spirit world, and a hidden salvation (open message, but <1% of the world is saved). Belief is absolutely essential, as when belief fails, the "spiritual walk" does as well because they must then enter the physical and empirical world. To keep up the belief, they have to be validated. Validation comes from spiritual gifts, so the belief can continue.
Since it is so draconian and life consuming, they have to have fun too, so there comes the drunk in the holy ghost part and the excitement of prophesy and the suspense of a service and the intensity of the alter service.The people that don't find it fun eventually get disillusioned and exit. They'll fake and do what they have to, but if it's not "in their heart" aka their form of enjoyment, they get fed up with it. I think that's what happened to me and why I never latched on, that I could never truly disengage my mind and have any of that stuff happen. I always had to propagate it, and that's how I knew it wasn't from outside myself.
You are being a really good sport, and respectful to your parents. I commend you for that. So long as you aren't traumatized for some reason, and it appears you aren't, it's the Right Thing to do even though I suspect a root canal might be at least marginally more appealing ;-)
If nothing else I can't think of a better motivation to find a job and get out on your own!
It's not really traumatizing since I'm pretty much immune to it, it's just excessively boring. I figured their's not really a good alternative, and employment and monetary security is more important than avoiding church ATM. Most of the time, I'm slightly drunk or high and in my own world lol, unwinding from the day trying to block out the noise around me and find something interesting to thing about. I've noticed I enjoy being sober a whole lot less when I have this crap around than when I can do things I'm interested in and engage my mind.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LuminousTruth
Lol. It's sounding like more and more of a scam to me. They require tithes AND atleast half more of that in free-will offering... All on top of free propaganda and marketing? This CEO group's ultimate focus is very clear: money from the invisible hand of the market, Hades Pluto (Hidden Wealth).
For one thing, Paul talks about Temple tithes not being required from non-Jews, and that free-will offerings are better. And for another thing, free-will offering aren't supposed to be slyly coerced like that (but I understand that most Churches put a lot of emphasis on wanting more money always "because we're so poor" even Catholic Churches have done this). Although I guess they could focus on that Jesus says give up all your money, so if your heart really truly "loves" God, you should give at least 60% of your income ever week to Church in order to get an passing grade. And on top of that God gave you everything, and everything you have is his and he is just asking for some of his money back. Give onto God what is God's and onto Caesar give nothing.
I'm not even sure Samaritan Jews even payed Temple taxes, since they rejected Bibliolatry and the Temple at Jerusalem and worshiped in tents as described in the books venerated by Bibliolaters.
The tithe is heaven and hell, but they don't like check you at the door or anything, since I've never paid it. The offering part isn't mandated, there's just always finding some event where you should get coerced into giving.
That's actually one of the things I don't like about Jesus, he's a cynic in the classical sense, such that worldly possessions are the source of problems and we'd all be happier living in tents and off the land.
The tithe is heaven and hell, but they don't like check you at the door or anything, since I've never paid it. The offering part isn't mandated, there's just always finding some event where you should get coerced into giving.
Yes, I understand that. I've never been aware of any organizations (even scam charities) that check you at the door. That would make their focus FAR too front and center. Those feeding off of the poor know the poor think about money all the time, so that they are allowed to talk about the "importance" of you giving it to them and "planting a seed" for yourself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil P
That's actually one of the things I don't like about Jesus, he's a cynic in the classical sense, such that worldly possessions are the source of problems and we'd all be happier living in tents and off the land.
Yeah, "the love of money (greed) is the source of all evil" and "look at the birds of the sky and lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin, and your Sky-Father provides for them still."
But greed is pretty ignorant, not necessarily evil, and you can use it to control people to work for what is wanted, such as what capitalist/mercantilist governments and prosperity gospel people do. Birds work their ass off, and lilies suffer from droughts.
My family were some pretty messed up people...but at least they weren't religious.
Nothing against religion, but I was never raised in any crazy "BOOM SHAKALAKA JESUS!" Church that involved booty shaking for the lord and backflips for salvation and the congregation speaking Klingon to have an encounter with the Holy ghost.
What is it? Simple: peer pressure. A bunch of people they have esteem for start that gibberish and they try to be just as holy as they are by joining in. It is all a scam, I assure you. Those kind of churches are basically a case of the Emperor's new clothes.
Want to experience God? Someone once gave us some advice: "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words."
Matthew 6:6-7
Go in a quiet place and sit in front of a candle to feel good. Or better yet, go out and do something for someone. Feed the homeless, help someone in need, be a good friend to the friendless. Do that, and in the reflection of another human's eyes, you will see God....or you could just keep trying to find it here:
I agree. If you desire to pray, God heard you the first time and saying it over and over and in a subconscious way won't help. My church stressed faith AND works, but the works were never works towards people, but legalistic purity and spiritual "gifts".
There's definitely a group aspect to it. It's one of my favorite things to watch. When one person claps, with the congregation clap or not? When the preacher stands still, do they go silent or start wailing. It's kind of fun watching and predicting pretty accurately what people are going to do based on various stimuli!
Quote:
Originally Posted by LuminousTruth
Yes, I understand that. I've never been aware of any organizations (even scam charities) that check you at the door. That would make their focus FAR too front and center. Those feeding off of the poor know the poor think about money all the time, so that they are allowed to talk about the "importance" of you giving it to them and "planting a seed" for yourself.
Yeah, "the love of money (greed) is the source of all evil" and "look at the birds of the sky and lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin, and your Sky-Father provides for them still."
But greed is pretty ignorant, not necessarily evil, and you can use it to control people to work for what is wanted, such as what capitalist/mercantilist governments and prosperity gospel people do. Birds work their ass off, and lilies suffer from droughts.
And I don't know that they are deliberately trying to swindle, they just do so many church events and flights around and flying people in it probably gets expensive and the income distribution is towards the poorer end for the church.
I think the bigger question is the followers who get spiritual elevation out of it.
If folks stop feedimg the troll it will die.
And unfortunately such actors are not limited to Christianity only.
All religions have been abused by such charlatans to push their own agenda and deceive people to reach their personal goals of making money.
I don't see much of difference between these actors who deceive masses by abusing the name of religion, and many politicians. Both are the same thing in different roles.
It's clearly because certain people are not interested in what the Bible actually says and what Christianity actually teaches, but are there for other things, such as the excitement they get from something like this.
Who's interpretation of the Bible is the correct one? Is it yours? There are so many.
There are many that read it and come to the same conclusion. Just read it as it is written, in context.
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