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One can only imagine the blowback if one decided to start a thread suggesting that Mormonism, or Islam, or virtually any other religion or heck, even Atheism were like a "virus"
In suggesting that Christianity is a virus, Mormonism would be included as part of the virus. Like it or not, BF.
The fact that THAT is all you took from my statement speaks volumes.
Well, THAT part did kind of jump out at everybody. You could have used Hinduism, Buddhism or Sikhism as your second example and no one would have thought a thing about it.
For better or worse isn't all ideology "spread like a virus"? Doesn't the internet supercharge that? I saw some videos with Mo Gawdate who was a CEO at Google. His son died in 2014 and he honors his son by spreading, quite deliberately, the essence of his son (compassion) across the internet.
Well, THAT part did kind of jump out at everybody. You could have used Hinduism, Buddhism or Sikhism as your second example and no one would have thought a thing about it.
Christianity is a very broad brush.
The likes of Ray Comfort, or others of similar beliefs, don’t represent all of Christianity either.
Ray Comfort represents a small swath of questionable preachermen with fractured ideas of how Jesus Christ works. By far the predominant ideology pervading Christianity today--at least as far as what Christians will observe on their boob-tubes--is the prosperity gospel. Here is a partial list of the idiots promoting the prosperity gospel one can see if they turn on any evangelical tv channel:
One has to ask, "Why is the prosperity gospel so dominant on the airwaves with roughly 9 out of 10 preachers fierce advocates of the doctrine?"
The answer is really quite simple: MONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!
Televangelsts have learned from experience that getting on TV to preach the ordinary gospel of love your fellow man as yourself as found in the New Testament is a sure-fire road to basement-level ratings, hemorrhaging viewership and quick cancellation. Only the prosperity gospel--the idea that for every buck you give God he will throw $1000 back at you gets viewers in any appreciable numbers. It's the Christian version of playing the Powerball Lottery. And following this formula has proven a goldmine for the 25 televangelists listed above. Collectively the prosperity gospel has netted them close to 2 BILLION dollars in wealth--and netted exactly 00 dollars for the suckers they've fleeced. Take a look at some of these numbers:
Kenneth Copeland - $300 million
David Oyedepo - $150 million
Pat Robertson - $100 million
Benny Hinn - $60 million
Pastor Chris Oyakhilome - $50 million
Joel Osteen - $40 million
Creflo Dollar - $27 million
Jesse Duplantis - $20 million
Whatever you do, Christians don't ever try to argue with numbers like these that the prosperity gospel represents a tiny segment of Christianity. The market for attracting Christians by preaching prosperity is gigantic. Why doesn't God put a stop to this bastardization of his Word???
Why, it would violate the free will of these hucksters to con Christians out of their children's dinner money of course. Can't have God overstepping these televangelists' free will to create havoc in Christianity and become multi-millionaires in the process, now can we?
Such is the cracked, confused, totally bizarro world that Christians inhabit.
Last edited by thrillobyte; 03-11-2023 at 12:21 PM..
For better or worse isn't all ideology "spread like a virus"? Doesn't the internet supercharge that? I saw some videos with Mo Gawdate who was a CEO at Google. His son died in 2014 and he honors his son by spreading, quite deliberately, the essence of his son (compassion) across the internet.
Not just ideology, but anything having to do with pop culture. The term “viral video” didn’t emerge by accident.
That said, Christianity is more overtly viral in origin and spread than many other religions and similar cultural phenomena. As I recently posted in a different thread:
Quote:
That’s very much by design and was one of the key points that diverged Christians from their Jewish theological heritage. After all, if your goal is strength in numbers (and that’s an extremely sound strategy when your goal is to gain power and influence), you can’t require people immerse themselves in Christian doctrine over an extended timeframe. You certainly don’t try to dissuade potential converts three times before you allow them to even begin the conversion process. You need adherents now, and simply requiring that people verbalize that they accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior, and perhaps also sprinkling or immersing yourself in water, is a quick and easy way to get them.
And the above quote doesn’t even delve into the spread-the-gospel requirements (read: recruiting warm bodies wherever and whenever you can get them), which remain essential to many Christian faiths.
Really, the only major Christian sect I can think of that was destined to fail was Shakerism. Prohibiting copulation of any kind will do that. They were able to hang on for a while by sponsoring orphanages, but then the orphanage system transitioned to the foster care model in the United States by the mid-twentieth century. Per Wikipedia, only three Shakers are alive as of 2021.
They make great furniture, from what I hear. On the other hand, so do the Amish.
I was just objecting to his choice to not include Mormonism in Christianity. He was saying that Braeburn applies aren't real apples, and they are. I wasn't suggesting that his statement was an accurate one. I don't believe it was.
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