- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/51605721
(TikTok screencap)
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For-profit hospitals.
For-profit schools.
For-profit prisons.
For-profit churches.
When will Americans realise there’s something wrong?
When it stops being profitable to pretend that there isn’t.
It’s not just mega churches.
My dad was going to a small little church for years. At some point in a conversation about their church, I asked him what the church does in terms of community service or giving to the less fortunate. His response was “nothing”.
To me, that should be a pretty high priority for organized religion, otherwise it’s just Sunday social hour and free entertainment … at best.
Social hour is actually very necessary, not happening, our third spaces are dying and churches are one of them. Not that I’m not glad to a degree, but we need replacements because people come to the church for human connection, and then pick up the bullshit over time.
Hell I’m in the South and I have queer friends that still go to southern baptist churches “because there’s food once a week” and “I get to be around people.”
Back in the 70s/80s/90s, we had The Mall. If you didn’t have anything else to do, you’d just go to The Mall, and see who was around. If nothing else, you could hang around in the book and record stores, or the food court. Or play games in the arcade. Or just sit on a bench and watch girls.
Now kids just sit home and play video games.
That is one of the most despicable reasons to join a cult. “To be around people”. What about some sports club? Chess-meetings? Hobby-philantropist-gatherings, passionate-juggler-convention?
If I join a thing that is evil, I’m also evil.
And how a queer could even think about joining some cult is beyond me. That’s like a Jew joining the Nazis because there’s people.
Wasn’t it you guys that had this law during the rise of crips/bloods gangs, that if you’d join one of the gangs and someone else committed a felony, you were also guilty of it?
I’d rather be lonely than actively supporting an evil cause.
Who said anything about a cult? Sounds like you got a few assumptions that you should reevaluate.
Hell I’m in the South and I have queer friends that still go to southern baptist churches
Nothing to assume, it was just said. I see no reason for reevaluation.
Watching Knives Out 3 triggered me. As a former Catholic, I was hit pretty hard by how the big bad was treating the church.
And thinking about it, yeah, that’s exactly what they are. There are those who run a church like a little kingdom and create cults of personality.
I feel like half of American churches could be wiped out if people just had some other live entertainment they could afford on the weekends.
Where I live, there are tiny churches EVERYWHERE. There’s a street next to Walmart that has 13 churches in residential houses along that single street.
Churches take money in, and provide literally nothing of substance in return. They are nothing more than tax evasion/ money-laundering operations, and at least 90% of them should be closed down. ALL of them should be taxed heavily.
If you learn about what went on during the Great Awakening, you can see that there was a lot of competition between different churches and no government regulation. For the entrepreneuial pastor, they could slightly change the gospel and church services to target a congregation of their choosing.
Oh but you have to pay to attend this kind of show and it’s super expensive, like easily 200$. It is a matter of preference for them, not affordability.
I always thought The Righteous Gemstones was a great show but purposefully overly ridiculous. I guess they were right on the nose.
So inconceivably many mentally challenged people that join those “mega churches”…it’s beyond me. Why? What is wrong with muricans?
Everything is business, everything is entertainment, everything is about money.
There is still real Christianity in the US, but this isn’t it. I recently read about someone asking for help from various churches, mosques and temples, and everybody offered help, except the churches. The churches that did help were predominantly black.
I don’t even know what “real Christianity” should be. I, personally, hate cults of all kind from the depths of my heart.
This silly tribalism is most always just about cash, power and separating themselves from “the others”.
And just because a group of evil people have some “good” amongst them doesn’t make the whole system any less evil, and they, themselves, are also evil because they’re part of something evil, no matter how hard they try to be good people.
The argument “but it was just a job and I needed money, I don’t believe in any of it” was never a convincing reason to work at a concentration camp.
Nothing against belief though. Who am I to render a final judgment about the universe without even knowing a fraction of the facts. But joining a cult/religion is the bad thing here. It’s a virus that spreads by word.
There’s definitely a difference between faith, and organised religion. I think the worst thing that can happen to any religion is to become an official state religion. At that point it becomes a tool for politics and social control. It unavoidably gets corrupted in some way. People aren’t part of it because they believe, but because they have to.
Horrible indeed. Being force-joined into a cult. Where I live I was joined by my parents at birth (just because “it’s that way”, not because they were believers) and I had to PAY to leave that church officially much later. Incredible. I didn’t sign a contract or was at a legal age to do so, I wasn’t asked and couldn’t even speak anyway, yet I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get out of that contract 18yrs later.
At least in this country it’s without consequences (except saving a shitton of money) or social pressure. Other societies have it much worse :-(
How does that work? How can you be made to pay? That does not sound legal to me. Can’t you just leave and ignore it?
Through taxes. You pay (I forgot how many) percent of your salary/income. So, very legal. Church makes a buttload of moneyz and still asks for spare change in mass 😂
I’m afraid I still don’t quite get it. Do you pay less taxes now? Do members of this church pay more taxes?
It all sounds completely at odds with the concept of freedom of religion.
If this is how most Christians behave, then I’m sorry to inform you this is real Christianity.
Then what would you call the people who actually follow the teachings of Christ? What would you call the Christians in other countries? Why would appropriators of a word get to own it?
Also Christian. Even calling this appropriation is distancing them from the guy with the golden throne.
“before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you’re selling it”
Also “we don’t like traditional Church buildings with beautiful architecture, we want to save money”
As someone raised Catholic my first visit to a Christian church looked wild.
Padded pews I can hang with. Drums? Electric guitars? Blasphemy I tell ya
Individual Christians are okay, but I don’t approve of their immoral lifestyles.
self-proclaimed Christians
Oh no someone is celebrating, get em!
There’s celebrating and then there’s spending millions on pageantry as the huddled masses starve and are brutalized by the fascist demagogues you’ve helped seize power.
This is the latter.
Lol wut.
Someone is living under a rock.
I know right?
